Football gambling and male youth in Nigeria

Abstract

Over the last decade, football gambling has rapidly expanded across Africa, becoming a defining feature of youth culture in Nigeria. While often framed by dominant academic and policy approaches as an addictive or harmful practice, little attention has been paid to how gambling is experienced, interpreted, and rationalised by young men navigating sustained economic precarity. In Nigeria, where conventional pathways to respectable male adulthood – such as stable employment, family formation, and the provision of financial support – are increasingly blocked as a consequence of neoliberal economics, gambling is not only pervasive but deeply meaningful. This thesis addresses this gap by examining the structural, cultural, and aspirational dimensions of football gambling among male youth in Nigeria.

Theoretically, the study is underpinned by a sociological framework that foregrounds both structure and agency, drawing mainly on Wyn and White’s (2015) reflective model of youth transitions as being shaped by ‘individual transitions’, ‘social transformation’, and ‘subjectivity’. Through this model and a set of conceptual tools, including ‘urban kinship’ (Bjarnesen & Utas 2018), ‘intergenerational reciprocity’ (Aboderin 2006), ‘hustler masculinity’ (Chukwuemeka 2022), ‘blowing’ (Serres 2023), and ‘waithood’ (Honwana 2014), the study explores how football gambling is reimagined and appropriated by male youth as a tool for ‘social navigation’ (Vigh 2009) or ‘judicious opportunism’ (Johnson-Hanks 2005).

Methodologically, the study is grounded in extended fieldwork across three urban settings in Nigeria – Lagos, Enugu, and Kano – involving ethnographic and interpretive qualitative methods, particularly participant and non-participant observation, informal conversations, and semi-structured interviews with thirty male youth and eight gambling industry actors (stakeholders and regulators). It examines three key domains: the industry structures that enable and normalise football gambling, the socio-cultural logics and localised motivations underpinning participation, and the implications of gambling for male youth transitions to respectable social adulthood.

Empirically, the thesis reveals that the Nigerian gambling sector, through lax regulation, spatial targeting, and localised promotional strategies, actively embeds football gambling into the everyday lives of male youth, particularly in low-income areas. Furthermore, male youth interpret football gambling not merely as economic risk, but as a socially meaningful hustle that aligns with masculine ideals of provision, status, and peer recognition. While it can temporarily enable male youth to fulfil adult responsibilities, football gambling’s speculative and unstable nature ultimately entrenches male youth in prolonged states of liminality and precarity. In doing so, the study contributes original insights to gambling studies, youth studies, and the sociology of sport and masculinity by offering a culturally grounded, youth-centred perspective on football gambling in contexts of change and structural constraint.

Thesis is embargoed until 31st October 2027

Date of Award	Oct 2025
Original language	English
Supervisor	Paul Kitchin (Supervisor) & Paul Darby (Supervisor)