The University of Buckingham Press Journals
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BRIBES, SECRET COMMISSIONS AND THE MONTE CARLO GRAND HOTEL
No full textIt is a core feature of agency – where one person contractually agrees to act on behalf of another – that the agent owes a duty of loyalty to his principal. This means that an agent must disclose to his principal any profits or gains which he stands to make personally from the transaction involved. An agent is not allowed to receive a corrupt payment such as a bribe to act in a way which is not in his principal’s interest. Indeed, to prevent an abuse of the relationship, even if an agent does not act corruptly, he cannot retain any personal profit made in a transaction relating to his principal unless that profit (for instance an additional commission) has been disclosed to and approved by the principal. So, in Boardman v Phippsa solicitor who made a large profit for a trust was prevented from keeping the profit he made for himself because it had not been agreed by all the trustees and beneficiaries. It was never suggested that he acted dishonestly.
RISK ASSESSMENT OF PROGRESSIVE CASINO GAMES
No full textThis paper presents an investigation into the properties of a stochastic process whereby the value of a fund grows arithmetically and decays geometrically over discrete time periods. While this general structure is applicable to many situations, it is particularly prevalent in many casino games. This investigation was motivated by a request for support by a casino operator. Statistical models were developed to identify optimal decisions relating to the casino game concerning setting the initial jackpot, the probability of winning each prize, and the size of the prizes. It is demonstrated that all moments of the process converge asymptotically and the limiting distribution is not Normal. Closed form expressions are provided for the first moment as well as investigate the quality of approximating the distribution with an Edgeworth Expansion. The case that motivated this initial investigation is presented and discussed
Ideas Markets: A Literature Review and Classification Scheme
Get PDFPrediction markets have been positioned in the literature as efficient and scalable information aggregation mechanisms. The increasing interest in the use of market mechanisms to enable decision making has led to attempts to use these mechanisms to stimulate innovation in a number of organisational contexts. These tools, usually referred to as Ideas Markets are seen as a potentially powerful method of sourcing and evaluating new ideas. Whereas traditional Prediction Markets allow participants to trade on the outcome of uncertain future events, Ideas Markets’ provide a platform for the generation and evaluation of ideas through the trading of virtual stocks representing products and concepts. In this paper, we study the evolution of research on Idea Markets though a comprehensive literature review. We develop a classification scheme, which enables thorough analysis of current trends within Ideas Markets research. Our results show that case studies detailing corporate applications of Ideas Markets dominate the current literature. The paper contributes by providing a comprehensive guide to the extant literature on Ideas Markets. This serves a number of purposes, including providing practitioners and academics with a convenient bibliography of the current literature. The issues highlighted by this literature review also serve to both motivate and enable further research
EMERGENT CAPITAL MARKETS’ EFFICIENCY: THE CASE OF POLAND
No full textWe apply two well-known technical indicators to the Polish Stock index over the period of 9/4/1998 to 4/18/2013. Our findings support the predictive power of technical trading rules for each sub-period and for the entire period. We then ask whether an investor can use the predictive power of technical analysis to beat the profitability of the buy-and-hold strategy considering both transaction costs and risk. We conclude that it is not possible to beat the buy and hold strategy when considering transaction costs and risk. We could say the Polish market is efficient.
FORENSIC SPORTS ANALYTICS: DETECTING AND PREDICTING MATCH-FIXING IN TENNIS
No full textDespite some degree of lingering friction between sports leagues and wagering, the eradication of corruption in sports is one issue in which the interests of sports governing bodies, reputable gambling businesses, entities affiliated with the sports industry, and law enforcement are allied. This paper aims to: (i) detect match-fixing corruption in tennis and (ii) predict such match-fixing before it occurs. We first compare proxy measures of effort in fair matches versus possibly unfair matches – matches played in the first round, where wagering-induced manipulation is more likely. The results show that players exert less effort (tanking) in the first round, even when adjusting for the slightly greater difference in skill level in such matches. We next determine whether the gambling markets were able to identify fixing, tanking, or other types of manipulation before the match was played. Using two predictive tennis models (ELO, Common-Opponent) to determine the fair trading price of a tennis match, we find prima facie evidence of the betting markets being affected, with an average of 23 matches per year likely being manipulated or outright fixed each year. Finally, we determine whether fixed matches can be identified before they are played using predictive modeling and by observing real-time market price changes. We conclude that when the betting price has a large irrational move away from the fair model-predicted price, the move is indicative of a fixed match before it is played.
A MODEL FOR PREDICTING POPULATION DISTRIBUTION AMONG DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
No full textWe present a theoretical model that enables to predict population distribution according to fertility and survival rates for each age group. Using World Bank data, we estimated the relation between fertility rate of change and survival probabilities. Our findings show that fertility rate of change is reduced in countries with low or medium survival rate of infants. Conversely, it increased for those with a high survival rate of infants. If the survival rate of infants converges to 1, the fertility rate of change converges to zero, moving the country to steady size of population at age 1.
Testing for Dependency, Autocorrelation and Weak Information Efficiency in Horse Race Rankings Time Series
No full textTime series of horse trotting race outcomes (rankings) are analysed and tested with time series methods. Horse race rankings are low valued integers that are typical for Poisson processes. Testing for temporal independency in rankings series is conducted with different tests. We focus on 456 series - both on observed and on expected rankings (odds) - and show that close to 40% of analysed observed series and close to 20% of expected series have significant, mainly non-negative, autocorrelations. These are not sensitive to the average ranking levels that the horses have obtained across the races they have finished. In average the observed rankings series show larger persistence than expected rankings. The close relationship between observed and expected rankings and non-independency results imply that a typical weak-form of information efficiency or forecast unbiasedness testing framework can be applied to horse level rankings series. Interestingly some information efficiency results are found mainly under maintained hypothesis, the difference between observed and expected rankings. It is argued that OLS methods are not necessary suitable in this context as the rankings series are integer valued and expected rankings are sensitive to bettors’ risk aversion.
DOES JET LAG CREATE A PROFITABLE OPPORTUNITY FOR NFL BETTORS?
No full textTraveling across multiple time zones, especially from east-to-west so that hours are “lost”, has documented negative effects on athletic performance. Nichols (2012) finds mixed evidence that sports betting markets fail to account for these effects. We reconsider, for the 2005-2010 NFL regular seasons, the “jet lag” hypothesis with more direct methods. We find that closing lines of NFL contests are set irrationally such that the jet lag effect is not appreciated. More importantly, we are the first to document that betting against potential jet lag teams proves to be markedly profitable. This profitability is statistically significant, which is a standard very rarely encountered throughout the literature. Consistent with our conjectures, we find these results to be even stronger when only afternoon games are kept in the sample and when division games are omitted from the sample
HUMAN RIGHTS, ‘ARRANGED’ MARRIAGES AND NULLITY LAW: SHOULD CULTURE OVERRIDE OR INFORM FRAUD AND DURESS?
Get PDFNullity law in Australia and Fiji provides that marriages can be void on various grounds, including duress and fraud. Despite some differences, United Kingdom (UK) law says marriages can be void or voidable on similar grounds. Courts in each jurisdiction have granted annulment in cases of forced marriage where duress “threatens life and limb”. Courts now say lesser force or threats, including pressure to comply with religious or traditional duty, can nullify marriage. Yet courts continue to require high level force such as passport confiscation, physical abuse, threats of eviction from the family home, and economic harm. This, as with allegations of fraud which receive short shrift, results from returning to common law authorities decided before migration resulted in significant demographic changes, particularly regarding culture and religion. UK authority draws a distinction between “forced” and “arranged” marriages, saying nullity is granted rightly in cases of the former, yet because “culture” “sanctifies” the latter, refusing nullity is right. Yet is this distinction valid? Should such marriages be recognised by Australian, Fijian and UK courts as contracted with full and free consent of the parties? An exploration of contemporary cases against the common law background to fraud and duress as nullity grounds indicates that allowing culture to be the measure denies women’s (and sometimes men’s) entitlement to contract marriage with full and free consent according to international human rights law
IS IT TIME TO KILL OFF HAMPSHIRE LAND?
Get PDFIn the early development of English Company Law it was doubted whether a company could be deemed to have the necessary “malice or motive” for most criminal and many tortious liabilities. This view was rejected by the Privy Council in Citizens’ Life Assurance Co Ltd v Brown, which led to the concept of a company having attributed to it personally (as against vicariously) the thoughts and actions of its “directing mind and will”. This was famously explained in a further House of Lords decision, Lennard’s Carrying Co Ltd v Asiatic Petroleum Co Ltd.