IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/inn/wpaper/2009-15.html

Loss aversion and mental accounting: The favorite-longshot bias in parimutuel betting

Author

Listed:
  • Jianying Qiu

Abstract

In this paper it is shown that the combination of mental accounting and loss aversion can fundamentally changes people's way of evaluating risky alternatives. The observation is applied in a market setting: Parimutuel betting markets. In parimutuel betting markets it has been found that for horses with lowest odds (favorites), market estimates of winning probabilities are smaller than objective winning probabilities; for horses with highest odds (longshot) the opposite is observed (the favorite-longshot bias). I build a game theoretical model and show that the favorite-longshot bias is the equilibrium play of the players with loss aversion, and that the degree of the favorite-longshot bias depends on the mental accounting process the players use.

Suggested Citation

  • Jianying Qiu, 2009. "Loss aversion and mental accounting: The favorite-longshot bias in parimutuel betting," Working Papers 2009-15, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    • Handle: RePEc:inn:wpaper:2009-15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.uibk.ac.at/downloads/c4041030/wpaper/2009-15.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:inn:wpaper:2009-15. 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: Judith Courian The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Judith Courian to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fuibkat.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.