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on Sports and Economics |
| By: | Kyohei Yamada (IUJ Research Institute, International University of Japan) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether the relationship between numerically presented winning probabilities and subjectively perceived uncertainty of outcome differs between elections and sports. For example, when the probability of winning is presented as 80%, some people may perceive the likelihood of winning as extremely high, while others might feel that the outcome is still uncertain as there remains a 20% chance of losing. Given this ambiguity, I experimentally manipulate winning probabilities to assess how different winning probabilities are perceived in terms of subjective uncertainty. Furthermore, given the potentially different nature of competition between elections and sports, I examine whether the results vary between the two contexts. The results reveal that: (1) for both elections and sports, perceived uncertainty was highest when the winning probability was at or near 50%; (2) however, the level of uncertainty differed between probabilities equally distant from 50%, with greater uncertainty at lower probabilities (e.g., 20%) than at higher probabilities (e.g., 80%); (3) finally, while perceived uncertainty in elections substantially decreased as the winning probability moved away from 50%, it remained relatively high across a broader range of probabilities in sports. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iuj:wpaper:ems_2026_17 |
| By: | Jacek P. Dmochowski |
| Abstract: | Sports betting moves money continuously from a large public to a small number of firms. The most influential account of that flow, due to Levitt (2004), holds that books price away from the market-clearing point to exploit predictable public biases. It computes profit from two numbers (the probability that a side wins the proposition and the fraction of handle it attracts), treating the share on a side as independent of the outcome. Here we relax that assumption and derive a profit-bias identity: profit is affine and increasing in the expected share of handle on the losing side, with Levitt's expression as the special case of independence. The identity resolves the book's margin into exactly three channels: its hold, the product of its price shading and the public's lean, and the covariance between bet share and outcome. A lean is thus worthless without shading, and shading is worthless without a lean. Under a public-belief model, the profit driver is the public's Bayes error: the probability of a representative bettor selecting the losing side. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a "Goldilocks Zone": prices at which book and bettor both profit. Testing these predictions on 1, 139 Major League Baseball games, we find that the apparent dependence between bet share and outcome is a Simpson's paradox: present when games are pooled, but absent once they are separated by which side the book favored. The public leans heavily toward favorites, but we detect no matching shading, and the realized margin is indistinguishable from the hold. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.06739 |
| By: | Sylvain Béal (Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, CRESE UR3190, F-25000 Besançon, France); Emmanuelle Lebeuf (Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, F-25000 Besançon, France); Kevin Techer (Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, CRESE UR3190, F-25000 Besançon, France) |
| Abstract: | We introduce a new allocation rule for network games that combines a local component and a global component. The local component depends only on the links incident to each player, whereas the global component allocates a surplus equally among the members of each connected component. We characterize this allocation rule by three classical axioms together with a new axiom, Fairness under Neighborhood Restriction, which requires that two adjacent players experience the same payoff variation when the network is restricted to their local neighborhoods, that is, to the sets of links incident to each player. We also examine an alternative allocation rule that differs only in its global component, distributing the surplus within each connected component in proportion to players’ degrees in the network. |
| Keywords: | Network games, Fairness under Neighborhood Restriction, Neighborhood Equal Surplus Division, axiomatic characterization |
| JEL: | C71 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crb:wpaper:2026-08 |
| By: | Min-Ren Guan; Shen-Ning Tung |
| Abstract: | We build and evaluate a pre-game win-probability forecaster for individual maps (``games'') in professional \emph{League of Legends} (LoL). The proposed model is a one-stage logistic regression fit end-to-end on the win/loss log-loss: each team's exponentially-weighted moving average of past same-side results, a ridge-shrunk stable strength that is the maximum-a-posteriori estimate of a logistic mixed model, and a first-pick draft covariate, natively calibrated out of sample (walk-forward slope $0.995$). It augments a purely dynamic Bradley--Terry specification with stable team strengths. A second, independently built two-stage composite mixed model under restricted maximum likelihood (REML) and best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) shrinkage, with Platt calibration, serves as the strongest rival the authors could build. On $5{, }135$ games across six regional leagues and three international events (2024--2026), under paired per-game Diebold--Mariano inference, the two architectures are statistically indistinguishable on every protocol and window (global holdout $0.2230$ vs.\ $0.2257$; walk-forward $0.2207$ vs.\ $0.2215$), so the simpler model is preferred on parsimony, not accuracy; both improve on the classical dynamic benchmark ($0.2351$) by a clear margin and on the static fits ($0.2301$/$0.2268$) more modestly. Against Polymarket on $928$ matched maps, the forecasts are statistically indistinguishable from the market on its own per-game contracts, with a modest market edge concentrated on cross-region Worlds and series-decider maps. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.08060 |
| By: | Peiran Xiao; Hashim Zaman |
| Abstract: | We study tournaments with managerial discretion in hiring. A manager selects a coworker from a pool of candidates and then competes against him in a Lazear--Rosen--style tournament with a prize equal to a share of total output. A profit-maximizing principal sets the prize share together with a head start (or handicap)---an advantage (or disadvantage) in the output comparison---granted to the manager. The head start affects output through three channels: (i) encouraging the manager, (ii) discouraging the new hire, and (iii) inducing the manager to hire a stronger candidate. The hiring effect dominates the discouragement effect until the strongest candidate is hired; beyond that point, any further head start discourages the new hire more than it encourages the manager. The optimal contract therefore grants a head start just large enough to induce the manager to hire the strongest candidate. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.04068 |
| By: | Close, James |
| Abstract: | Background: Commercial political activity is increasingly recognised within the broader framework of commercial determinants of health. However, UK gambling-related political engagement is fragmented across separate transparency systems. This study examined whether a GPT-assisted, independently reconciled workflow could integrate these records and provide a more complete picture of disclosed political activity. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted of UK gambling-related political engagement from 1 January 2020 to 25 August 2026 across three streams: (1) Electoral Commission political donations; (2) MPs’ declared hospitality/gifts and funded visits; and (3) ministerial meetings within the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport / Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). GPT was used to retrieve, structure, link and classify records against a reference frame of gambling organisations, which was derived from multiple public sources, including Gambling Commission registers, Companies House records, company and trade-body information, and historical ownership and corporate-relationship evidence. After classification, each of the three streams underwent an independent GPT reconciliation pass, followed by bounded human adjudication of unresolved cases. A final audit compared the final donations and hospitality datasets with previous UK journalism and civil-society reporting. Results: The principal analysis identified 127 donations with confirmed active commercial gambling connections, worth £7.73 million, from donors with a confirmed material commercial gambling connection active on the donation date. Of this value, 85.4% went to the Conservative political family and 13.0% to Reform UK. MPs declared 176 qualifying hospitality/gift events involving 71 MPs, worth £236, 162, plus four funded visits. The ministerial-meeting census contained 272 gambling-related events, of which 86 involved principal commercial-industry actors. Across the 138-group company universe, meeting frequency was positively associated with both donation frequency (Spearman ρ=.390; p=.00004) and hospitality frequency (ρ=.487; p=.00001), although these associations are observational and non-causal. In the final audit against previously reported figures, 291 of the observed donation/hospitality records had no apparent or obvious match in the prior-reporting examined; and one genuine omission in this analysis was identified and corrected (related to hospitality). Conclusions: Systematic linkage across transparency systems revealed a scale and pattern of gambling-connected political activity that is not apparent from individual registers or prior headline reporting. GPT made this integration tractable, but independent reconciliation and human adjudication were essential. Integrated monitoring of political activity may therefore be important for understanding the commercial determinants of health in gambling and other harmful commodity industries. |
| Date: | 2026–09–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:489yx_v1 |
| By: | Christine Sevilla-Dedieu (FESP MGEN - Fondation d’entreprise MGEN pour la santé publique); Morgane Le Guern (FESP MGEN - Fondation d’entreprise MGEN pour la santé publique); Nathalie Billaudeau (FESP MGEN - Fondation d’entreprise MGEN pour la santé publique); Alain Paraponaris (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The literature shows that the adoption of good health behaviours is positively linked to individual factors, such as educational or socioeconomic levels. In this study, we aim to explore the link between an individual's attitude towards risk and the adoption of positive health habits (e.g., being sporty, not smoking or having a normal Body Mass Index – BMI –). Methods We analysed survey data collected by phone from 2, 666 individuals selected at random from a population of French health insurees. In addition to the individual's socioeconomic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, number of children, level of education, financial difficulties) and health status, we specifically analysed the role of his/her score for risk taking, measured using the 30-item self-report DOSPERT scale, in the adoption of each good health behaviour, using logistic models. Results Among the 2, 666 respondents, 58.0% reported participating in sports regularly, 71.6% did not smoke, and 61.8% reported having a normal BMI. The logistic models show a strong significant association ( p < 0.01) between the respondent's DOSPERT risk score and his/her health habits; however, the sign depends on the behaviour considered. Conclusion Our results reveal the complexity of the relationship, which is not unequivocal, between an individual's attitude towards risk and the adoption of these good health behaviours. Health-conscious individuals do not exhibit a uniform pattern of behaviour: their choices regarding diet, physical activity and smoking, reflect distinct and sometimes inconsistent trade-offs. |
| Keywords: | Health behaviours, Sports, Tobacco, Weight, Attitude towards risk |
| Date: | 2026–06–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05746334 |
| By: | Natalia Starzykowska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | The proposed research is an attempt to analyse the tendency to take a revenge revealed by the participants in the television program "Ten to One" and its relationship with gender, education, and demographic variables of a player. Choices made by participants consist of indication of a participant who will answer the next question. Since this reduces the ones probability of winning the episode, the feedback can be considered as a negative reciprocity or simply: revenge. |
| Keywords: | gender discrimination, negative reciprocity, reciprocity |
| JEL: | C91 D91 J16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-26 |