IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nye/nyervw/v41y2010i1p35-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using Actual Betting Percentages to Analyze Sportsbook Behavior: The Canadian and Arena Football Leagues

Author

Listed:
  • Rodney J. Paul
  • Andrew P. Weinbach
  • Kristin K. Paul

Abstract

Sportsbook behavior is tested for the Canadian and Arena Football Leagues using real sportsbook betting percentages from on-line sportsbooks. The balanced book hypothesis of the traditional sportsbook models does not appear to hold for these leagues, as favorites and overs attract more than 50 percent of the betting dollars. Although there is some slight evidence toward shading the line in these directions, there is also no overwhelming evidence supporting the Levitt (2004) hypothesis, as sportsbooks do not appear to be actively pricing to maximize profits. In general, the results seem more consistent with the sportsbook pricing as a forecast, content with earning their commission on losing bets as simple strategies win about 50 percent of the time.

Suggested Citation

  • Rodney J. Paul & Andrew P. Weinbach & Kristin K. Paul, 2010. "Using Actual Betting Percentages to Analyze Sportsbook Behavior: The Canadian and Arena Football Leagues," New York Economic Review, New York State Economics Association (NYSEA), vol. 41(1), pages 35-44.
  • Handle: RePEc:nye:nyervw:v:41:y:2010:i:1:p:35-44
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nyecon.net/nysea/publications/nyer/2010/NYER_2010_p035.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.nyecon.net/nysea/publications/nyer/2010/NYER_2010_p035.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:nye:nyervw:v:41:y:2010:i:1:p:35-44. 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: Eryk Wdowiak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nyseaea.html .

    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.