The University of Buckingham Press Journals
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THE POWER OF WAGERING ON POWER CONFERENCES
No full textWe study the perceived discrepancy between power conference and mid-major college football teams by examining outcomes of games when these teams face one another. We find that point spreads are set statistically irrationally in games where power conference teams play mid-major teams. We examine all regular season games from the 2002-2011 seasons and find power conference teams cover the spread in a majority of games when facing a mid-major team to an extent that results in profitability over a ten-year period. We find that consistently betting power conference teams will cover point spreads when facing mid-major teams’ results in a return of roughly 2.94% over these seasons. Taking into account Associated Press rankings, the size of point spreads, and the week of the season when games are played, results in even greater profits
Evaluating Crime Attributable to Casinos in the U.S.: A Closer Look at Grinols and Mustard’s “Casinos, Crime, and Community Costs”
No full textThis paper examines problems in studying the relationship between casinos and crime, with a focus on a recently published, influential study (Grinols and Mustard 2006) which concluded that casinos cause a significant amount of county-level crime in the U.S. Five key issues are examined. First, the most serious problem with their analysis is that it uses a crime rate that excludes the visiting population at risk, thereby overstating the crime rate in casino counties. Second, the crime data used are potentially inaccurate. Third, the results may suffer from a bias caused by counties self-selecting into the “casino county” category. Fourth, the dummy variables used to account for casinos do not allow the authors to isolate the crime effect caused by casinos. Finally, the authors make conclusions that are not supported by their data, analysis, and results. An examination of these issues is important because it will shed additional light on the debate over the effects of casinos, and provides valuable information for subsequent researchers who study the casino-crime relationship.I am grateful to Jay Albanese, Bill Eadington, David Forrest, Mark Nichols, Don Ross, and Richard Thalheimer for helpful comments and suggestions, and especially to John Jackson and Ben Scafidi for helpful discussions on this paper. I am responsible for the content and any errors
ASSESSMENT TOOL TO MEASURE AND EVALUATE THE RISK POTENTIAL OF GAMBLING PRODUCTS ASTERIG
No full textAlthough most individuals who gamble do so without any adverse consequences, some individuals develop a recurrent, maladaptive pattern of gambling behaviour, often called pathological gambling or gambling disorder, that is associated with financial losses, disruption of family and interpersonal relationships, and co-occurring psychiatric disorders. Identifying whether different types of gambling modalities vary in their ability to lead to maladaptive patterns of gambling behaviour is essential to develop public policies that seek to balance access to gambling opportunities with minimizing risk for the potential adverse consequences of gambling behaviour. Until recently, assessing the risk potential of different types of gambling products was nearly impossible. ASTERIG, initially developed in Germany in 2006-2010, is an assessment tool to measure and to evaluate the risk potential of any gambling product based on scores on ten dimensions. In doing so, it also allows a comparison to be drawn between the addictive potential of different gambling products. Furthermore, the tool highlights where the specific risk potential of each specific gambling product lies. This makes it a valuable tool at the legislative, case law, and administrative levels as it allows the risk potential of individual gambling products to be identified and to be compared globally and across 10 different dimensions of risk potential. We note that specific gambling products should always be evaluated rather than product groups (lotteries, slot machines) or providers, as there may be variations among those product groups that impact their risk potential. For example, slot machines may vary on the amount of jackpot, which may influence their risk potential
The Impact of Casino Gambling on Housing Markets: A Hedonic Approach
No full textThe social and economic impact of casino gambling has been a contentious issue in both the popular and academic press. Prior academic research has focused largely on constructing piece-by-piece cost benefit accounting, but theoretical and measurement issues have prevented researchers from reaching a consensus as to the bottom line impact of casino gambling. This paper uses a hedonic approach to estimate directly the implicit price and the welfare impacts of a casino on its local area. The hedonic approach provides consistent estimates of the net change in social welfare without relying on a piecemeal approach to measuring costs and benefits. Using data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census of Population and Housing, the estimated net benefit of casino gambling at year 2000 levels was approximately 2% of household value, or about 3,000 per household for households living near a casino. Additionally, there are positive spillover effects to neighboring in-state regions and no significant costs to out-of-state border regions. A particularly important finding for policymakers is that the benefits associated with a casino depend inversely on population density. Casinos are more likely to create net benefits in areas where population density is low
Casinos and Economic Growth: An Update
No full textAs U.S. politicians and voters continue to grapple with the slower-than-expected recovery from the 2007-09 recession, the legalization (or expansion) of commercial casinos has become an increasingly popular policy. Casinos are politically popular because the state government legalizes them, and can thus create a new industry which pays high taxes and may stimulate employment and economic development. Despite the fact that casinos are now widespread in the United States – there are around 1,000 commercial and tribal casinos – the empirical evidence on their economic impacts is still negligible.In two previous studies ( we have tested the relationship between state-level casino revenues and per capita income (i.e., economic growth) to provide evidence on whether or not casinos have a positive economic impact on states’ economies. We have utilized a Granger causality model modified for use with panel data. Our initial evidence, from a paper published in 1998, indicated that casinos do Granger cause economic growth. However, when we re-tested the model using up-to-date data (at the time, through 2005), we found no significant results. The casino industry has grown extensively since 2005, and although the recession of 2007-09 had a negative impact on the casino industry, the national-level revenue numbers are again climbing.We extend our previous analyses in order to provide updated evidence on the economic growth impact of commercial casinos in the United States. Section 2 provides a more detailed background of our previous analysis and an overview of other relevant literature. Section 3 describes the data and model, and provides the results. Section 4 is a discussion and conclusion.
THE GAMBLING HABITS OF ONLINE POKER PLAYERS
No full textOnline poker is a data goldmine. Recording actual gambling behavior gives rise to a host of research opportunities. Still, investigations using such data are rare with the exception of nine pioneering studies by Harvard Medical School which are reviewed here. This paper fills part of the vacuum by analyzing the gambling habits of a sample of 2,127,887 poker playing identities at Pokerstars over a period of six months. A couple of playing variables are operationalized and were analyzed on their own as well as connected with each other in form of the playing volume (2,685), and 1% of the players account for 60% of playing volume (10% for even 91%). This group is analyzed more thoroughly, and a discussion shows that the first impulse to peg intense players as (probable) pathological gamblers is wrong. Rather, future research is needed to distinguish problem gamblers from professional players.
IS THE SOCCER BETTING MARKET EFFICIENT? A CROSS-COUNTRY INVESTIGATION USING THE FIBONACCI STRATEGY
No full textThe sports betting industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world and therefore the literature on sports betting has gained momentum in the last two decades. The literature mainly focuses on testing the efficiency of the sports betting market. The prediction of game outcomes or comparing the odds of bookmakers by predicted odds and the search for betting strategies which yield significant positive returns have been the core of the market efficiency tests. This study, instead of making any predictions or generating odds to be compared by bookmakers’ odds, implements the Fibonacci sequence on draws as a betting rule for 8 European soccer leagues for the seasons from 2005/2006 to 2008/2009. As the odds offered by bookmakers are narrowly distributed, implementing the Fibonacci strategy for 8 soccer leagues of Europe for 4 seasons yields positive return for all cases and also controlling with simulated data the strategy is found to be in most circumstances profitable. The results indicate that the bookmakers are inefficient in terms of predicting the draws and the soccer betting markets are inefficient. Therefore, the betters could exploit this inefficiency by following Fibonacci strategy assuming they have enough financial liquidity. Furthermore, we calculate the capital needed to pursue the strategy resorting to the Value at Risk (VaR) methodology and reveal that the VaR is only 143€ (assuming that the first bet is 1€) at 95% confidence level
EXAMINING PARTICIPATION IN SPORTS BETTING IN GERMANY
No full textPrevious research has examined participation in betting in general, while sports bets have not been investigated specifically. The purpose of this study is to investigate the participation in sports betting and the mechanisms to place bets in Germany. Based on the economic household theory, it is assumed that participation in sports betting can be explained by a set of economic, socio-demographic, and lifestyle factors. A convenience sample of German citizens is drawn using an online survey (n=464). The results show that the typical online bettor is a male with high income, low education, and non-German nationality, who plays cards and poker during his leisure time, but does not regularly participate in sport. On the contrary, people betting via automats are predominantly female with low income and high education, who do not play poker, but practice sport in their leisure time. The findings have implications for policy makers
GAMBLING ON GAMBLING: FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF RAISING BET LIMITS AND TABLE DIFFERENTIALS
No full textThe house advantage for Baccarat is known, hence the theoretical win can be determined. What is impractical to theoretically determine is the frequency and financial implications of extreme events, for example, prolonged winning streaks coupled with various betting patterns. The simulation herein provides such granularity. We explore the effect of following the ‘hot hand’, that is, rapidly escalating bets when players are on a winning streak. To minimize their exposure, casino management sets a table bet maximum as well as a table differential. These figures can and do serve as a means to differentiate one casino from another. As the allowable bet maximum increases so does the total amount bet, which increases the theoretical winnings, thus suggesting that a high bet limit and differential is beneficial for the house. However, the greater are these amounts, the greater the number of shoes that end with players losing relative to a constant betting scenario (the number of times a player wins at all can drop from ~47% of the time to less than a quarter); but there will, on occasion, be more extreme payouts to players. This simulation is therefore intended to help casino managers set betting limits that maximize total winnings while bearing in mind both the likelihood and magnitude of negative outcomes to the casino
The Effect of Casinos on Local Labor Markets: A County Level Analysis
No full textThe economic outcomes surrounding the dramatic spread of “Las Vegas” style casinos in the United States has become a point of great interest and inquiry both politically and academically. Prior research has tended to focus on regional studies and provided uniform conclusions regardless of differences in the nature of the community. Moreover, much of the previous empirical work fails to account for local level trends during estimation. By using a comprehensive data set on employment and earnings from across the US, and by including county-specific trends, this research hopes to alleviate these earlier concerns, as well as help reconcile differences in the early literature surrounding casino effects on related industrial sectors. Basic findings suggest that counties experience an increase in employment after a casino opens, but there seems to be no measurable effect on average earnings. More detailed analysis reveals that the effect on industries related to casinos is somewhat mixed, but in general mildly positive, as casinos provide a positive employment and earnings spillovers into the surrounding local community. Intertemporal estimation suggests that the casino effect changes over time, but also finds that time effects vary across sectors. Estimates of how overall effects vary across different population sizes find that employment growth is inversely related to county population. Finally, additional estimation finds little impact on employment levels in neighboring counties, although there are some small effects in certain industries.I would like to thank Scott Adams, Scott Drewianka, John Heywood, James Peoples, McKinley Blackburn, Keith Bender, Don Siegel, Gary Anders, Doug Walker, and Mike Wentz for their helpful suggestions. I would also thank David Mustard and Earl Grinols for their help with the data. Dain Johnson provided valuable research assistance