IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jospec/v9y2008i4p371-386.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Line Movements and Market Timing in the Baseball Gambling Market

Author

Listed:
  • Rodney J. Paul

    (St. Bonaventure University, rpaul@sbu.edu)

  • Andrew P. Weinbach

    (Coastal Carolina University)

Abstract

This article analyzes betting strategies based on line movements in Major League Baseball and tests for possible evidence of informed bettors. Overall line movements from open to close, first movements, and last movements are studied for the 2003 season for a Las Vegas sportsbook and for the 2006 season for an offshore sportsbook. In the Las Vegas sportsbook, betting against first movements to favorites and betting with last movements to underdogs generates statistically significant profits. The offshore sportsbook appears to be efficient, with the only strategy generating positive, but insignificant returns, being betting against first movements to favorites. Differences between the offshore and Las Vegas betting markets are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Rodney J. Paul & Andrew P. Weinbach, 2008. "Line Movements and Market Timing in the Baseball Gambling Market," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(4), pages 371-386, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:9:y:2008:i:4:p:371-386
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002507310435
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002507310435
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1527002507310435?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. Rodney J. Paul & Andrew P. Weinbach, 2005. "Bettor Misperceptions in the NBA," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 6(4), pages 390-400, November.
    3. 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.
    4. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:385-401 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. John M. Gandar & Richard A. Zuber & William H. Dare, 2000. "The Search for Informed Traders in the Totals Betting Market for National Basketball Association Games," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(2), pages 177-186, May.
    6. Rodney Paul & Andrew Weinbach & J. Weinbach, 2003. "Fair bets and profitability in college football gambling," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 27(2), pages 236-242, June.
    7. Dare, William H. & MacDonald, S. Scott, 1996. "A generalized model for testing the home and favorite team advantage in point spread markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 295-318, February.
    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, April.
    9. Golec, Joseph & Tamarkin, Maurry, 1991. "The degree of inefficiency in the football betting market : Statistical tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 311-323, December.
    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. Norton, Hugh & Gray, Steve & Faff, Robert, 2015. "Yes, one-day international cricket ‘in-play’ trading strategies can be profitable!," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(S2), pages 164-176.

    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. Rodney J. Paul & Andrew P. Weinbach, 2011. "Investigating Allegations of Pointshaving in NCAA Basketball Using Actual Sportsbook Betting Percentages," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(4), pages 432-447, August.
    2. 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.
    3. Michael Sinkey & Trevon Logan, 2014. "Does the Hot Hand Drive the Market? Evidence from College Football Betting Markets," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 583-603, September.
    4. 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.
    5. Dagaev, Dmitry & Stoyan, Egor, 2020. "Parimutuel betting on the eSports duels: Evidence of the reverse favourite-longshot bias," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    6. Greg Durham & Mukunthan Santhanakrishnan, 2012. "Point-Spread Wagering Markets' Analogue to Realized Return in Financial Markets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(5), pages 554-566, October.
    7. Rodney J. Paul & Andrew P. Weinbach, 2005. "Bettor Misperceptions in the NBA," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 6(4), pages 390-400, November.
    8. Rodney Paul & Andrew Weinbach, 2005. "Market efficiency and NCAA college basketball gambling," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 29(3), pages 403-408, September.
    9. Kevin Krieger & Clay Girdner & Andy Fodor & David Kirch, 2013. "The Power Of Wagering On Power Conferences," Journal of Prediction Markets, University of Buckingham Press, vol. 7(1), pages 13-26.
    10. 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.
    11. Yoon Tae Sung & Scott Tainsky, 2014. "The National Football League Wagering Market," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(4), pages 365-384, August.
    12. 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.
    13. Frank Daumann & Markus Breuer, 2011. "The Role of Information in Professional Football and the German Football Betting Market," Chapters, in: Wladimir Andreff (ed.), Contemporary Issues in Sports Economics, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Rebeggiani, Luca & Gross, Johannes, 2018. "Chance or Ability? The Efficiency of the Football Betting Market Revisited," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181563, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. 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.
    16. Corey A. Shank, 2018. "Is the NFL betting market still inefficient?," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 42(4), pages 818-827, October.
    17. Berkowitz, Jason P. & Depken, Craig A. & Gandar, John M., 2017. "A favorite-longshot bias in fixed-odds betting markets: Evidence from college basketball and college football," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 233-239.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. Steven G. Sapra, 2008. "Evidence of Betting Market Intraseason Efficiency and Interseason Overreaction to Unexpected NFL Team Performance 1988-2006," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(5), pages 488-503, October.

    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:sae:jospec:v:9:y:2008:i:4:p:371-386. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.