Sports News And Stories In The Service Of Gamblification : The Finnish State-Owned Gambling Monopoly's Sports-Related Social Media Posts

Gamblification refers to the gambling industry's aspirations to normalize gambling through hybrids of gambling and non-gambling contexts, most commonly sports. While research has widely shown that betting, sponsorships, and marketing gimmicks contribute to the normalization of gambling, we lack knowledge on how sports news production and journalistic storytelling pursue the same objective. This study provides insight into the ways in which Veikkaus, the Finnish state-owned gambling monopoly, utilizes sports news and stories in its social media communication. We sampled Veikkaus's sports-related social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube in 2018-2020 and analysed the ways in which the content is framed to serve the Finnish public through an alignment between Veikkaus and the world of sports. Our study shows that the company takes on three communicative roles in order to claim, acquire, and justify its relevance: a news agency, a producer of high-quality journalistic storytelling, and an engager of people. In these roles, Veikkaus is pursuing the function of sports media, while simultaneously being Finland's only legal gambling provider. This societal dual role needs to be problematized, not least because it relies on the revenues of citizens' gambling.