Countable spaces and common priors

We show that the no betting characterisation of the existence of common priors over finite type spaces extends only partially to improper priors in the countably infinite state space context: the existence of a common prior implies the absence of a bounded agreeable bet, and the absence of a common improper prior implies the existence of a bounded agreeable bet. However, a type space that lacks a common prior but has a common improper prior may or may not have a bounded agreeable bet. As a side-benefit of the proofs here, we also obtain a constructive proof of the no betting characterisation in finite spaces. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014