Professor Mills, based in the Department of Geography and Environment, has been given a 12-month fellowship worth £150,000. The funding will enable her to conduct a major new research project: Gambling on Political Futures: Geographies of Political Betting.

During the project she will map gambling markets connected to political events and candidates, analyse secondary data including gambling adverts, and conduct interviews with vital stakeholders.

Professor Mills explains: “Political betting is a growing market of the trillion-dollar global gambling industry. UK consumers are placing more and more bets on elections, making it an ideal case-study of a global phenomenon. This new research will examine the geographies of political betting, how the gambling industry imagines political futures, and the role of political betting advertising.

“There is an urgent need to better understand this topic: first, gambling is a critical public health issue; second, because of the worrying rise of ‘insider knowledge’ bets during the UK’s 2024 General Election; and finally, for the future of democracy we must understand how political betting potentially contributes to political outcomes.”

For more information on the project, follow Professor Mills' blog.

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