By Robbie Butler
I am delighted to report our latest publication success in Behavioral Economcis Review. The sport in question - greyhound racing - is lagrely overlooked in the sports economic literature.
We test whether the dog drawn in Trap 4 - the Coffin Trap - is less likely to win any given race. Our motivation? Many intuitions evolve into folk beliefs that are shared and persist within a community. These offer dubious cues to influence decision-making. We examine a natural setting where folk belief can be empirically testable: the sport of greyhound racing. This community maintain that greyhounds drawn in Trap 4 – the ‘Coffin Trap’ – are disadvantaged and ought to be avoided by bettors.
Using data from 78,595 greyhound performances in Great Britain, we empirically test the accuracy of this enduring intuition. Controlling for pre- and within-race conditions, our results support the community intuition. The ‘Coffin Trap’ significantly disadvantages greyhound and this is not reflected in market odds. This finding are robust across races and empirical estimators. As there is no scientific basis for the origin of this belief, these results substantiate the success of a culturally surviving intuition. We conjecture that a valid cue has emerged from learning over time within the community.
The paper is undergoing proofing and will be available shortly online.
I am delighted to report our latest publication success in Behavioral Economcis Review. The sport in question - greyhound racing - is lagrely overlooked in the sports economic literature.
We test whether the dog drawn in Trap 4 - the Coffin Trap - is less likely to win any given race. Our motivation? Many intuitions evolve into folk beliefs that are shared and persist within a community. These offer dubious cues to influence decision-making. We examine a natural setting where folk belief can be empirically testable: the sport of greyhound racing. This community maintain that greyhounds drawn in Trap 4 – the ‘Coffin Trap’ – are disadvantaged and ought to be avoided by bettors.
Using data from 78,595 greyhound performances in Great Britain, we empirically test the accuracy of this enduring intuition. Controlling for pre- and within-race conditions, our results support the community intuition. The ‘Coffin Trap’ significantly disadvantages greyhound and this is not reflected in market odds. This finding are robust across races and empirical estimators. As there is no scientific basis for the origin of this belief, these results substantiate the success of a culturally surviving intuition. We conjecture that a valid cue has emerged from learning over time within the community.
The paper is undergoing proofing and will be available shortly online.
RSS Feed
