[Commlist] CFP: "The Betting Epidemic: Gambling, Financialization, and Digital Platforms"

Revista Alceu (PUC-Rio, Brazil), a peer-reviewed, open-access journal 
(Qualis A3 / CAPES), invites submissions for a thematic dossier:

The Betting Epidemic: Gambling, Financialization, and Digital Platforms

Guest Editors: Thiago Falcão (Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil) and 
Daniel Marques (Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil)

Submission deadline: June 30, 2026

Expected publication: December 2026

Over the past decades, gambling has taken on new sociotechnical 
contours. Sports betting, online casinos, and digital gambling platforms 
have reorganized its ludic dimension, shifting it from an episodic 
practice to continuous forms of engagement, risk exposure, calculation, 
and the promise of return. Under the guise of entertainment, these 
platforms articulate affective capture, persuasive design, datafication, 
and metrics-driven business models, converting attention, expectation, 
and leisure time into economic value.

This process is not confined to the financial sphere. The popularization 
of digital betting produces significant cultural, subjective, and 
political effects, especially when associated with narratives of 
individual entrepreneurship, social mobility, and personal 
responsibility. By presenting betting as an accessible and meritocratic 
opportunity, these platforms may intensify regimes of instability, 
indebtedness, and precarity, particularly among vulnerable populations.

The dossier seeks to investigate digital betting platforms as a 
structural and multidisciplinary phenomenon in which design plays a 
transversal role. Understood as a form of technopolitical mediation, 
design participates in the organization of conduct, the construction of 
decision-making environments, the modulation of affective states, and 
the naturalization of risk, in articulation with algorithmic 
infrastructures, regulatory regimes, advertising strategies, and media 
imaginaries.

We welcome contributions addressing, among other topics, the following 
central axes:

 1.

    Political economy of betting and the financialization of everyday life:

     1.

        gambling, betting, and the financialization of everyday life and
        leisure;

     2.

        business models and the political economy of betting platforms;

     3.

        relations between digital betting platforms and financial markets;

     4.

        parallels between betting, gamblification, and platformized work;

 2.

    Digital infrastructures, data, and algorithmic opacity:

     1.

        datafication, collection, modeling, and monetization of
        behavioral data;

     2.

        algorithmic opacity and informational asymmetries;

     3.

        digital platforms and their technical infrastructures;

 3.

    Platform design, attention, and regimes of engagement:

     1.

        persuasive design, dark patterns, and choice architectures;

     2.

        affective capture, the attention economy, and regimes of 
engagement;

 4.

    Culture, media, and betting imaginaries:

     1.

        advertising, influencers, and the spectacularization of betting;

     2.

        sports, esports, and the normalization of betting;

     3.

        masculinities, ideologies, and betting imaginaries;

     4.

        childhood and betting imaginaries;

 5.

    Social inequalities and sociopolitical impacts:

     1.

        class, race, and gender, and the cultural and political effects
        of betting;

     2.

        addiction, indebtedness, and psychosocial impacts;

 6.

    Regulation, ethics, and public policy:

     1.

        platforms, regulation, ethics, and public policy;

     2.

        national and international regulatory frameworks;

     3.

        limits and contradictions of “responsible gambling” policies;

 7.

    Resistance, frictions, and alternatives:

     1.

        critical alternatives, frictions, and counter-design.

*
*

Articles may be submitted in Portuguese, English, or Spanish.

*No submission or publication fees are required from authors.*

Full CFP and submission guidelines: 
https://revistaalceu.com.puc-rio.br/alceu/announcement/view/11 
<https://revistaalceu.com.puc-rio.br/alceu/announcement/view/11>

Contact: Thiago Falcao: (thiago.falcao /at/ academico.ufpb.br) 
<mailto:(thiago.falcao /at/ academico.ufpb.br)> |  Daniel Marques: 
(danielmarquescontato /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(danielmarquescontato /at/ gmail.com)>

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