Political Gambling: Uncertainty, Prediction and the Biggest Game of All

Political Gambling vivisects 21st Century politics by bringing together critical gambling studies, anthropology, political science, and economics. It starts with a hypothesis: an upsurge in political betting during our snowballing ecological, democratic, health and economic crises reveals a profound collective anxiety about our fragile future, and the drive to profit from fear. Exploiting emerging technologies, the gambling industry has moved into decaying high streets, onto our personal devices and into politics. This project studies political gambling and the resulting ‘prediction markets,’ where ideological beliefs, historical trends and national moods are all condensed down to prices, blunting political difference.