IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jsf/intjsf/v1y2006i1p21-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Efficiency of the UK Fixed-Odds Betting Market for Euro 2004

Author

Listed:
  • John Goddard

    (University of Wales, Bangor)

  • Stuart Thomas

    (University of Wales, Swansea)

Abstract

An assessment is made of the efficiency of four UK high street bookmakers’ betting odds for the 2004 European football (soccer) championships, based on an analysis of match results data from 15 previous international tournaments. Pretournament probabilities for the outright winners of Euro 2004 are generated using Monte Carlo simulations. There is no evidence that the bookmakers underestimated the win probability of the pre-tournament outsiders and ultimate winners, Greece. However, the odds quoted for bets on the host nation team, Portugal, appear to understate the importance of home advantage. The bookmakers’ odds for fixed-odds betting on the outcomes of individual matches appear to satisfy the criteria for betting market efficiency, although this finding is based on a very small sample.

Suggested Citation

  • John Goddard & Stuart Thomas, 2006. "The Efficiency of the UK Fixed-Odds Betting Market for Euro 2004," International Journal of Sport Finance, Fitness Information Technology, vol. 1(1), pages 21-32, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:jsf:intjsf:v:1:y:2006:i:1:p:21-32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fitinfotech.com/IJSF/backissueresults.tpl?ISSID=1%3A1&Available=T&startat=1
    Download Restriction: Full-text download requires subscription from FIT.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fixed-odds betting; market efficiency; international football;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jsf:intjsf:v:1:y:2006:i:1:p:21-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fitinfotech.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.