Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Diffusion And Learning: Twenty Years Of Sports Betting Culture In Finland, Matias Karekallas, Pauliina Raento, Taina Renkonen

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

How did people learn to bet on sports and how did a sports betting culture develop in Finland? How has this setting evolved over space and time? The answers contribute to the growing understanding of learning, socialization, and contextualization in the study of gambling and may inspire service providers, regulators, and harm preventers alike. We argue that broad structural patterns and micro-cultural processes should be investigated jointly and qualitative information should complement quantitative monitoring of human behavior. We approach the spread of sports betting to, and within Finland, from the perspective of innovation diffusion. We rely on this theory’s space- …