IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/buecrs/v55y2003i2p113-123.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Reverse Favourite–longshot Bias and Market Efficiency in Major League Baseball: An Update

Author

Listed:
  • Linda M. Woodland
  • Bill M. Woodland

Abstract

Racetrack and sports betting markets have been researched extensively with respect to the question of market efficiency. In contrast to the consistently observed favourite–longshot bias found in racetrack betting markets, it has been shown that gamblers in the market for Major League Baseball games reveal the opposite behaviour. This paper updates the previous study with ten years of additional data for the 1990–99 seasons. The strength of the reverse favourite–longshot bias is virtually identical to the original paper. The result suggests that, contrary to most reported inefficiencies in gambling markets, this bias appears to be permanent.

Suggested Citation

  • Linda M. Woodland & Bill M. Woodland, 2003. "The Reverse Favourite–longshot Bias and Market Efficiency in Major League Baseball: An Update," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 113-123, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:buecrs:v:55:y:2003:i:2:p:113-123
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8586.00165
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8586.00165
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8586.00165?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Linda M. Woodland & Bill M. Woodland, 2001. "Market Efficiency and Profitable Wagering in the National Hockey League: Can Bettors Score on Longshots?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(4), pages 983-995, April.
    2. Vaughan Williams, Leighton, 1999. "Information Efficiency in Betting Markets: A Survey," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 1-30, January.
    3. Gray, Philip K & Gray, Stephen F, 1997. "Testing Market Efficiency: Evidence from the NFL Sports Betting Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1725-1737, September.
    4. Leighton Vaughan Williams & David Paton, 1998. "Why are some favourite-longshot biases positive and others negative?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(11), pages 1505-1510.
    5. Raymond D. Sauer, 1998. "The Economics of Wagering Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 2021-2064, December.
    6. Woodland, Linda M & Woodland, Bill M, 1994. "Market Efficiency and the Favorite-Longshot Bias: The Baseball Betting Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 269-279, March.
    7. Linda M. Woodland & Bill M. Woodland, 2001. "Market Efficiency and Profitable Wagering in the National Hockey League: Can Bettors Score on Longshots?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(4), pages 983-995, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Restocchi, Valerio & McGroarty, Frank & Gerding, Enrico & Johnson, Johnnie E.V., 2018. "It takes all sorts: A heterogeneous agent explanation for prediction market mispricing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 270(2), pages 556-569.
    2. Schmidt, Carsten & Strobel, Martin & Volkland, Henning Oskar, 2008. "Accuracy, Certainty and Surprise - A Prediction Market on the Outcome of the 2002 FIFA World Cup," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 08-13, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    3. Linda M. Woodland & Bill M. Woodland, 2015. "The National Football League season wins total betting market: The impact of heuristics on behavior," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(1), pages 38-54, July.
    4. Philip W. S. Newall & Dominic Cortis, 2021. "Are Sports Bettors Biased toward Longshots, Favorites, or Both? A Literature Review," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, January.
    5. William H. Dare & Steven A. Dennis, 2011. "A Test for Bias of Inherent Characteristics in Betting Markets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(6), pages 660-665, December.
    6. David Forrest & Ian Mchale, 2007. "Anyone for Tennis (Betting)?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(8), pages 751-768.
    7. Adi Schnytzer & Guy Weinberg, 2008. "Testing for Home Team and Favorite Biases in the Australian Rules Football Fixed-Odds and Point Spread Betting Markets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(2), pages 173-190, April.
    8. Bibhas Saha, 2015. "An Economist’s Perspective on Match-fixing and Self-sabotage in Contests," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 4(2), pages 77-85, July.
    9. Benjamin Waggoner & Daniel Wines & Brian P. Soebbing & Chad S. Seifried & Jean Michael Martinez, 2014. "“Hot Hand” in the National Basketball Association Point Spread Betting Market: A 34-Year Analysis," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-12, November.
    10. Christian Deutscher & Bernd Frick & Marius Ötting, 2018. "Betting market inefficiencies are short-lived in German professional football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(30), pages 3240-3246, June.
    11. Forrest, David & Goddard, John & Simmons, Robert, 2005. "Odds-setters as forecasters: The case of English football," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 551-564.
    12. Daniel C. Hickman, 2020. "Efficiency in the madness? examining the betting market for the ncaa men’s basketball tournament," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 44(3), pages 611-626, July.
    13. David Forrest & Robert Simmons, 2008. "Sentiment in the betting market on Spanish football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 119-126.
    14. Yu, Dian & Gao, Jianjun & Wang, Tongyao, 2022. "Betting market equilibrium with heterogeneous beliefs: A prospect theory-based model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 298(1), pages 137-151.
    15. Linda M. Woodland & Bill M. Woodland, 2011. "The Reverse Favorite-Longshot Bias in the National Hockey League: Do Bettors Still Score on Longshots?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(1), pages 106-117, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jaiho Chung & Joon Ho Hwang, 2010. "An Empirical Examination of the Parimutuel Sports Lottery Market versus the Bookmaker Market," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(4), pages 884-905, April.
    2. Philip W. S. Newall & Dominic Cortis, 2021. "Are Sports Bettors Biased toward Longshots, Favorites, or Both? A Literature Review," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, January.
    3. Jinook Jeong & Jee Young Kim & Yoon Jae Ro, 2019. "On the efficiency of racetrack betting market: a new test for the favourite-longshot bias," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(54), pages 5817-5828, November.
    4. Stekler, H.O. & Sendor, David & Verlander, Richard, 2010. "Issues in sports forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 606-621, July.
      • Herman O. Stekler & David Sendor & Richard Verlander, 2009. "Issues in Sports Forecasting," Working Papers 2009-002, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.
    5. David Forrest & Robert Simmons, 2008. "Sentiment in the betting market on Spanish football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 119-126.
    6. David Forrest & Ian Mchale, 2007. "Anyone for Tennis (Betting)?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(8), pages 751-768.
    7. Hwang, Joon Ho & Kim, Min-Su, 2015. "Misunderstanding of the binomial distribution, market inefficiency, and learning behavior: Evidence from an exotic sports betting market," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(1), pages 333-344.
    8. Jason P. Berkowitz & Craig A. Depken II & John M. Gandar, 2018. "The Conversion of Money Lines Into Win Probabilities," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(7), pages 990-1015, October.
    9. Adi Schnytzer & Guy Weinberg, 2008. "Testing for Home Team and Favorite Biases in the Australian Rules Football Fixed-Odds and Point Spread Betting Markets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(2), pages 173-190, April.
    10. Nikolaos Vlastakis & George Dotsis & Raphael N. Markellos, 2009. "How efficient is the European football betting market? Evidence from arbitrage and trading strategies," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 426-444.
    11. Tai, Chung-Ching & Lin, Hung-Wen & Chie, Bin-Tzong & Tung, Chen-Yuan, 2019. "Predicting the failures of prediction markets: A procedure of decision making using classification models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 297-312.
    12. David Paton & Leighton Vaughan Williams, 2005. "Forecasting outcomes in spread betting markets: can bettors use 'quarbs' to beat the book?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 139-154.
    13. Benjamin Waggoner & Daniel Wines & Brian P. Soebbing & Chad S. Seifried & Jean Michael Martinez, 2014. "“Hot Hand” in the National Basketball Association Point Spread Betting Market: A 34-Year Analysis," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-12, November.
    14. Linda M. Woodland & Bill M. Woodland, 2001. "Market Efficiency and Profitable Wagering in the National Hockey League: Can Bettors Score on Longshots?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(4), pages 983-995, April.
    15. William Hurley & Lawrence McDonough, 2007. "Imperfect Market-Maker Competition, Heterogeneous Expectations, and The Favourite-Longshot Bias in Wagering Markets," Journal of Gambling Business and Economics, University of Buckingham Press, vol. 1(1), pages 3-12, February.
    16. Kyle W. Hampton, 2007. "The Double‐Auction Gambling Market: An Experimental Examination," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 493-532, July.
    17. Marshall Gramm & Douglas H. Owens, 2006. "Efficiency in Pari‐Mutuel Betting Markets across Wagering Pools in the Simulcast Era," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 926-937, April.
    18. Linda M. Woodland & Bill M. Woodland, 2011. "The Reverse Favorite-Longshot Bias in the National Hockey League: Do Bettors Still Score on Longshots?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(1), pages 106-117, February.
    19. Linda M. Woodland & Bill M. Woodland, 2015. "The National Football League season wins total betting market: The impact of heuristics on behavior," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(1), pages 38-54, July.
    20. Arne Feddersen & Brad R. Humphreys & Brian P. Soebbing, 2018. "Sentiment Bias in National Basketball Association Betting," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(4), pages 455-472, May.

    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:bla:buecrs:v:55:y:2003:i:2:p:113-123. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0307-3378 .

    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.