IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this article or follow this journal

Noise, Information, and the Favorite-Longshot Bias in Parimutuel Predictions

Author Info

  • Marco Ottaviani
  • Peter Norman Sorensen

Abstract

According to the favorite-longshot bias, the expected return on an outcome tends to increase in the fraction of bets laid on that outcome. We derive testable implications for the direction and extent of the bias depending on the ratio of private information to noise present in the market. We link this ratio to observables such as the number of bettors, the number of outcomes, the amount of private information, the level of participation generated by recreational interest in the event, the divisibility of bets, the presence of ex post noise, as well as ex ante asymmetries across outcomes. (JEL D81, D83)

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.2.1.58
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.

Volume (Year): 2 (2010)
Issue (Month): 1 (February)
Pages: 58-85

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:2:y:2010:i:1:p:58-85
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.2.1.58
Contact details of provider: Web page: https://www.aeaweb.org/aej-microEmail:


More information through EDIRC

Order Information: Web: https://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html

Keywords:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
  • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Thaler, Richard H & Ziemba, William T, 1988. "Parimutuel Betting Markets: Racetracks and Lotteries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 161-74, Spring.
  2. Joseph Golec & Maurry Tamarkin, 1998. "Bettors Love Skewness, Not Risk, at the Horse Track," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 205-225, February.
  3. Busche, Kelly & Hall, Christopher D, 1988. "An Exception to the Risk Preference Anomaly," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(3), pages 337-46, July.
  4. Erik Snowberg & Justin Wolfers, 2010. "Explaining the Favorite-Long Shot Bias: Is it Risk-Love or Misperceptions?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 723-746, 08.
  5. Brown, Lawrence D. & Lin, Yi, 2003. "Racetrack betting and consensus of subjective probabilities," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 175-187, April.
  6. Richard N. Rosett, 1965. "Gambling and Rationality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73, pages 595.
  7. Alistair Bruce & Johnnie Johnson, 2001. "Efficiency characteristics of a market for state contingent claims," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(13), pages 1751-1754.
  8. Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "Why are gambling markets organised so differently from financial markets?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 223-246, 04.
  9. Bruno Jullien & Bernard Salanié, 1997. "Estimating Preferences under Risk : The Case of Racetrack Bettors," Working Papers 97-39, Centre de Recherche en Economie et Statistique.
  10. Ali, Mukhtar M, 1977. "Probability and Utility Estimates for Racetrack Bettors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(4), pages 803-15, August.
  11. Weitzman, Martin L., 1965. "Utility Analysis and Group Behavior: An Empirical Study," Scholarly Articles 3710799, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  12. Terrell, Dek & Farmer, Amy, 1996. "Optimal Betting and Efficiency in Parimutuel Betting Markets with Information Costs," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(437), pages 846-68, July.
  13. Quandt, Richard E, 1986. "Betting and Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 101(1), pages 201-07, February.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Erik Snowberg & Justin Wolfers, 2010. "Explaining the Favorite-Long Shot Bias: Is it Risk-Love or Misperceptions?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 723-746, 08.
  2. Charles Moul & Joseph Keller, 2014. "Time to Unbridle U.S. Thoroughbred Racetracks? Lessons from Australian Bookies," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 211-239, May.
  3. McAlvanah, Patrick & Moul, Charles C., 2013. "The house doesn’t always win: Evidence of anchoring among Australian bookies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 87-99.
  4. Koessler, Frédéric & Noussair, Charles & Ziegelmeyer, Anthony, 2012. "Information aggregation and belief elicitation in experimental parimutuel betting markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 195-208.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:2:y:2010:i:1:p:58-85. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jane Voros)

or (Michael P. Albert)

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.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.