National Sentiment and Economic Behavior: Evidence From Online Betting on European Football

Autoren

• Braun
• S.
• Kvasnicka
• M.

Erscheinungsdatum

DOI

10.1177/1527002511414718

JEL Classification

Schlagworte

National sentiment can have major implications for individual consumption and investment choices but has been little researched by economists. This paper studies how national sentiment in the form of a perception or loyalty bias of bettors may affect pricing patterns on national wagering markets for European football. We show theoretically that both biases can be profitably exploited by domestic bookmakers through price adjustment. Analyzing empirically a unique data set of betting odds from online bookmakers in Europe, we find evidence of systematic biases in the pricing of own national teams, deviations that can be explained by the aforementioned two biases.