Special Collections & Archives invites you to attend this William R. Eadington Fellow Colloquium featuring Ryan Fajardo, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Northwestern University. 

Since the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to overturn the 30-year federal ban on sports betting, 38 states have legalized the practice, with most wagers now placed digitally. This rapid expansion has sparked debates among stakeholders—including sportsbooks, state officials, prominent bettors, and gambling use disorder professionals—about the legality, morality, and legitimacy of digital sports betting.

In this talk, Fajardo will identify two key features that distinguish digital sports betting from other gambling products: its speculative nature and digital accessibility. These characteristics complicate comparisons to pre-existing gambling forms and related consumer experiences, fueling ongoing debates over how to conceptualize and regulate the industry.

To investigate these debates, Fajardo is conducting an institutional and qualitative analysis of the sports betting market, drawing on interviews, ethnographic fieldnotes, and professional documents from national and Illinois-based stakeholder discussions, alongside interviews from a convenience sample of engaged bettors. Fajardo focuses on two central debates over the user experience of emergent legal sports betting: how to balance entertainment and rationality in betting and how to navigate the instant digital access that enhances its appeal.

The study explores how stakeholders and bettors define the emotional experience of betting to make sense of these conflicts. These definitions ultimately shape broader discussions on regulation and market structure. This research contributes to sociological studies on market formation and the digital economy while offering insights into a pressing social issue.

Fajardo’s broader work spans economic sociology, science and technology studies, and cultural sociology, with published research in the British Journal of Sociology and Socius. He holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Sociology and Economics from Williams College.

The William R. Eadington Fellowship program is sponsored by the University Libraries Special Collections and Archives and funds scholarly research into our collections on gaming and Las Vegas.