FiT Publishing

Previous research has determined that home field advantage (HFA) is positively related to crowd density. Isolating this effect is a substantial empirical challenge as crowd density is endogenous with home win-likelihood via fan interest. We consider a natural-experimental setting that introduces exogenous crowd-density variation into National Football League (NFL) games. COVID-19 safety protocols allow us to disentangle crowd-presence, crowd-density, and built-environment effects upon HFA. We find strong evidence that crowd presence is a significant, substantial source of HFA, but crowd...Read more

Fantasy sports is a favorite form of sports consumption, and sports betting is becoming increasingly more popular and accessible. Following the recent Supreme Court decision concerning legalization, many fantasy sports operators are now incorporating sports betting into their platforms to capitalize on this opportunity. However, little research examines the motivations behind why some fantasy players bet on sports while others do not. Using a trait-based model, we investigate the likelihood that fantasy sports players would also engage in sports betting, revealing that traits are...Read more

This paper provides an explanation for sports betting that does not appeal to risk-preferring preferences. The strategy is to link betting to the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis, a cornerstone of sports economics. The model relies on the inclusion of a contest utility function as part of a fan’s overall utility. The analysis focuses on point-spread betting and shows that sports fans can increase their contest utility by placing a bet if the contest is unequal and if they are either non-partisan or are sufficiently strong supporters of the underdog. When these conditions are met, an...Read more

This paper provides an explanation for sports betting that does not appeal to risk-preferring preferences. The strategy is to link betting to the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis, a cornerstone of sports economics. The model relies on the inclusion of a contest utility function as part of a fan’s overall utility. The analysis focuses on point-spread betting and shows that sports fans can increase their contest utility by placing a bet if the contest is unequal and if they are either non-partisan or are sufficiently strong supporters of the underdog. When these conditions are met, an...Read more

Research examining how information influences pricing, efficiency, and line accuracy in sports betting markets is common. The existing literature, however, does not consider that the natural release of information through standard game play may be systematically related to changes in line accuracy. We test this hypothesis and find a statistically significant improvement in line accuracy in both the sides and totals markets as more information is released. This indicates the information produced through game play is valuable in improving contest forecasts by both oddsmakers and the market....Read more

A landmark decision (Murphy v. NCAA) by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in 2018 ruled that the federal government could not prohibit individual states from allowing sports wagering. Our study explicitly assesses the stock market’s response to this case’s progression through legal review phases, culminating with a landmark SCOTUS decision. Surprisingly, we find that the stock market failed to efficiently interpret key events precipitating SCOTUS’ eventual decision. Even though serious indications suggested that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was...Read more

Using data from all FIFA World Cup competitions that took place between 1994 and 2014, a step logit model is estimated to forecast the likelihood of success of each team in each tournament. The model correctly identifies the winner in five out of the six tournaments, and among many variables considered, key contributors to the model’s forecasting performance are identified. Using only the information available by the date preceding each of the last two in-sample World Cups, we can perform a more ambitious test of the model’s ability to forecast the winner at future tournaments. Our results...Read more

Manipulation of on-field events for betting gain appears to be a growing problem in football and other sports. It can be linked to developments in the betting environment and is a potential threat to the football industry to the extent that it may deter fans, sponsors, and broadcasters from purchasing the product. Risks are highest in European lower-tier competitions where high liquidity in the betting market contrasts with modest incomes among players and officials. The liquidity is provided principally by Asian betting markets that are largely unregulated, which itself is a significant...Read more

The National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL) are studied to ascertain the determinants of betting volume on an individual game-to-game basis. Actual betting volume was obtained and aggregated across three on-line sportsbooks for the 2008-09 season. Independent variables such as the quality of teams, television coverage by network, day of the week, time of day, month of the season, etc. are included in a regression model to determine the factors that influence betting volume. The results reveal betting behavior is much like fan behavior as key fan-attributes,...Read more