Economics Of Betting Markets

This unique book delves into a number of intriguing issues and addresses several pertinent questions including, should gambling markets be privatized? Is the ‘hot hand’ hypothesis real or a myth? Are the ‘many’ smarter than the ‘few’ in estimating betting odds? How are prices set in fixed odds betting markets? The book also explores the informational efficiency of betting markets and the prevalence of corruption and illegal betting in sports.

During the last few decades, commercial gambling has increased substantially throughout the Western world. More people than ever before have access to sources of legalised gambling, leading to bumper revenues for the institutions involved. Naturally enough, this has led to an increased interest in the area of the economics of betting. This book addresses the issues raised by the continued growth of the gambling sector. How can we model the behaviour of people who seemingly act irrationally? What are the implications of different tax policies with regard to gambling? Are casinos capable of taking money away from state-run lotteries and the causes they fund? Can bookmakers’ odds be influenced in such a way as to make the gambling market inefficient? The authors in this volume provide insights based on data from many different countries, including England, the USA, Australia, Spain and Cyprus. This volume brings together work which addresses the economic impact of the huge growth of commercial gambling in the Western world, as well as trying to model the cognitive processes which can explain why individuals are prepared to behave in such apparently irrational ways. This book was published as a special issue of Applied Economics. The academic editor of this journal is Mark P. Taylor.

Against a background of extraordinary growth in the popularity of betting and gaming across many countries of the world, there has never been a greater need for a study into gambling's most important factor - its economics. This collection of original contributions drawn from such leading experts as David Peel, Stephen Creigh-Tyte, Raymond Sauer and Donald Siegel covers such interesting themes as: *betting on the horses *over-under betting in football games *national lotteries and lottery fatigue *demand for gambling *economic impact of casino gambling This timely and comprehensive book covers all the bases of the economics of gambling and is a valuable and important contribution to the ongoing and growing debates. The Economics of Gambling will be of use to academics and students of applied, industrial and mathematical economics as well as of being vital reading for those involved and interested in the gambling industry.

The degree to which markets incorporate information is one of the most important questions facing economists today. This book provides a fascinating study of the existence and extent of information efficiency in financial markets, with a special focus on betting markets. Betting markets are selected for study because they incorporate features highly appropriate to a study of information efficiency, in particular the fact that each bet has a well-defined end point at which its value becomes certain. Using international examples, this book reviews and analyses the issue of information efficiency in both financial and betting markets. Part I is an extensive survey of the existing literature, while Part II presents a range of readings by leading academics. Insights gained from the book will interest students of financial economics, financial market analysts, mathematicians and statisticians, and all those with a special interest in finance or gambling.

There is growing interest among academics and policymakers in the economics of gambling, which has been stimulated by major regulatory and tax changes in the U.S., U.K. Continental Europe, Asia, Australia and elsewhere. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive source of path-breaking research on this topic. To fill this gap, we commissioned chapters from leading economists on all aspects of gambling research. Topics covered include the optimal taxation structure for various forms of gambling, factors influencing the demand and supply of gambling services, forecasting of gambling trends, regulation of gambling, the efficiency of racetrack and sports betting markets, gambling prevalence and behavior, modeling the demand for gambling services, the economic impact of gambling, substitution and complementarities among different types of gambling activity, and the relationship between gambling and other sectors of the economy. These are all important issues, with significant global implications. Specifically, we divide the Handbook into sections on casinos, sports betting, horserace betting, betting strategy, motivation, behavior and decision-making in betting markets, prediction markets and political betting, and lotteries and gambling machines

A reprint of one of the classic volumes on racetrack efficiency, this book is the only one in its field that deals with the racetrack betting market in-depth, containing all the important historical papers on racetrack efficiency. As evidenced by the collection of articles, the understanding of racetrack betting is clearly drawn from, and has correspondingly returned something to, all the fields of psychology, economics, finance, statistics, mathematics and management science.

Its basic empirical research and investigation of pure theories of investment in the sports and lottery markets make this volume a winner. These markets are simpler to study than traditional financial markets, and their expected values and outcomes are uncomplicated. By means of new overviews of scholarship on the industry side of racetrack and other betting markets to betting exchanges and market efficiencies, contributors consider a variety of sports in countries around the world. The result is not only superior information about market forecasting, but macro- and micro-analyses that are relevant to other markets. Easily studied sports markets reveal features relevant for more complex traditional financial markets Significant coverage of sports from racing to jai alai New studies of betting exchanges and Internet wagering markets