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on Sports and Economics |
| By: | David Winkelmann; Maya Vienken; Christian Deutscher; Roland Langrock |
| Abstract: | Match-fixing undermines the integrity of sport by eroding public trust and threatening the financial sustainability of clubs and leagues. The global expansion of sports betting markets has created new incentives and opportunities for manipulation, calling for rigorous, data-driven monitoring tools. Football, which accounts for the largest share of global betting turnover, remains particularly exposed: integrity reports continue to flag several suspicious matches, with past scandals in Italy and Turkey underlining the problem's persistence. This study uses high-frequency live-betting data from the Italian Serie B (2018/19-2020/21) to explore statistical approaches for detecting abnormal betting behaviour. A state-space modelling framework is employed to describe standard betting market dynamics and to predict expected betting volumes conditional on match characteristics. Deviations from these expectations can then be analysed using outlier detection techniques to identify potentially suspicious periods. The results demonstrate how statistical modelling can contribute to the early identification of irregular betting patterns, thereby supporting integrity assurance in live sports betting markets. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.30209 |
| By: | Moyo, Busani; Gwatidzo, Tendai |
| Abstract: | The announcement of South Africa as the 2010 host of the FIFA World Cup in 2004 was a triumphant moment for the country and the African continent. It marked the first time in FIFA's history that the World Cup would be hosted by an African country. We use synthetic control method to create counterfactual South Africa without the World Cup and compare it with actual South Africa to analyse the impact of this tournament. Our results show that although hosting the world cup games in 2010 had no positive effects on GDP it significantly increased tourism inflows. We however find evidence that GDP did increase during the period after announcing that South Africa would host the tournament to a year before the tournament. This suggests that the analysis of these events should focus on both the year the event is held as well as the period immediately after host announcement. |
| Keywords: | FIFA World Cup, South Africa, GDP, Tourism, Synthetic Control Method |
| JEL: | C31 C33 E23 L83 O11 O55 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:128789 |
| By: | Bergh, Andreas (Lund University and) |
| Abstract: | Treating development as the ability to participate in complex, non-subsistence, globally comparable activities, this paper proposes participation in elite activities as an indicator of global development. Using standardized rankings from 1970 to 2025 across domains, including sports, chess, supercomputing, and fine dining, adjusted Shannon diversity and Herfindahl concentration indices are calculated. Results show that global elite diversity has increased and concentration has decreased across all studied areas. Global convergence is nearly complete for the measure with the lowest bar (having a national football team). These trends provide a development perspective less sensitive to purchasing power parity distortions. |
| Keywords: | Global development; Global inequality; Poverty measurement; Leisure and sports participation; Purchasing power parity; Welfare measurement |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I32 O10 O15 Z20 |
| Date: | 2026–06–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1561 |
| By: | Xiaohui Guo; Lizhong Peng; Chad Meyerhoefer |
| Abstract: | This is the first study to estimate the impact of sports gambling legalization on food sufficiency using the staggered implementation of state laws between 2021-2023. By analyzing Google searches for online sportsbooks and legal wagers, we show that interest in sports gambling increases sharply following legalization. Applying an imputation-based difference-in-differences design to biweekly Household Pulse Survey (HPS) data, we find that legalized sports gambling reduces household food sufficiency by 2.1 percent among working-age adults without a college degree, which translates to a 10.5 percent decline among active bettors. This effect is cyclical, persisting for three-to-five months during NFL seasons. Additionally, the declines in food sufficiency are larger among households with adults aged 25-44 and racial/ethnic minorities. Using additional data from the HPS, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and Current Population Survey, our exploration of mechanisms suggests that the negative effects on food sufficiency operate through financial distress rather than changes in mental health or labor supply. A back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that legalization of sports gambling in nine states resulted in an additional 284, 000 food-insufficient households and $130.2 million in excess healthcare expenditures annually. |
| JEL: | I12 I18 I31 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35305 |
| By: | Dan Ben-Moshe; David Genesove |
| Abstract: | In the fall of 2020, neural-network methods produced a large improvement in chess engines that became freely and widely available. By the end of 2021, the monthly draw rate in classical chess had risen by about four percentage points, but the distribution of player ratings, which are commonly read as measures of playing strength, had changed little. Ratings, however, are a relative measure, built from results against other rated players rather than from an absolute scale of play quality, so an improvement shared broadly across players need not change their ratings. Using 3.9 million rated classical games from March 2015 to November 2023, we document that the increased draw rate remains after conditioning on both players' ratings, holds within repeated same-color matchups, is not a continuation of a pre-existing trend, and persists through the end of the sample. A linear transformation that maps post-Covid ratings to higher pre-Covid equivalents, with a larger gap at lower ratings, accounts for more than 90 percent of the post-minus-pre shift in the fitted draw, White-win, and Black-win probabilities. Players' ratings and ranks, by contrast, show no additional rank reshuffling and no general widening of within-group dispersion relative to the pre-Covid benchmark. We interpret these findings as consistent with adoption across rating levels, with larger rating-equivalent gains for lower-rated players. |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2606.12893 |
| By: | Ran Spiegler; Stephan Waizmann |
| Abstract: | We study strategic interaction when players delegate belief formation to predictive machine learning (ML). In a static Bayesian game, each player's ML agent predicts a payoff-relevant outcome variable as a function of the player's type. The ML agent's training sample is endogenous: it is drawn from the outcome distribution generated by players' ML-guided behavior. In Cross-Validation Equilibrium (CVE), each player's ML agent selects a predictive model to minimize expected out-of-sample squared error, given its realized training sample, and each player best-replies to the belief generated by the model her ML agent selected. We analyze CVE and relate it to other equilibrium concepts. We apply CVE to jury voting, speculative betting, and games with linear-quadratic payoffs. E.g., in a team-effort game, endogenous model selection can give rise to multiple equilibria. |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2606.12571 |
| By: | Crichton-Amaya, Rebeca |
| Abstract: | In competitive youth tennis, a critical question often goes unasked: when does parental investment matter most? This study applies the economic principles of Cunha and Heckman’s (2007) skill formation model to a simulation of 10, 000 virtual players tracked across three developmental stages: Foundation (ages 8–10), Development (ages 11–14), and Elite (ages 15–18). The simulation operationalises self-productivity, dynamic complementarity, and sensitive periods, while treating the model as hypothesis-generating rather than confirmatory. The headline result is that the cumulative path of investment, not innate ability, dominates final skill: investment variables alone explain roughly 63% of outcome variance, whereas initial ability alone explains only about 7%. Investment effects also rise across stages, with Elite-stage spending the strongest single predictor. Consistent with the central hypothesis, late-weighted strategies (mean final skill 41.7) outperform early-weighted strategies (40.7) among resource-constrained families, with balanced intermediate (41.2) and consistently-high highest overall (43.8). A sensitivity analysis confirmed this late-weighted advantage is robust across eleven alternative specifications, including equalised lifetime budgets. These patterns suggest that, for budget-constrained families, when to invest may matter nearly as much as how much—though simulation-based inference requires caution in generalisation. |
| Date: | 2026–05–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:h9t4p_v1 |