Author Archives: Rick Borghesi
Widespread Corruption in Sports Gambling: Fact or Fiction?
Justin Wolfers has captured the attention of many with his now infamous paper (PDF) in which he proposes that college athletes shave points far more frequently than previously believed. He deserves a great deal of credit for the originality of his methods, his well-thought-out and diplomatic responses to criticism, and provoking an incredibly interesting debate.
There [...]
Price Biases in a Prediction Market: NFL Contracts on Tradesports
When researchers debate the efficiency of stock markets, one complication is that the true value (as opposed to the price) of a security is almost never revealed with certainty. For example, perhaps my model predicts that IBM shares are worth $110. If I observe that shares are actually trading at $100, I don’t know whether [...]
The NFL’s Home Underdog Bias: Timing and Weather
I have been studying the underdog (reverse favorite-longshot) bias and find that the timing of the phenomenon is potentially interesting. The two papers that I’ve published on this topic are:
The Late Season Bias: Explaining the NFL’s Home Underdog Effect (PDF file) and;
The Home Team Weather Advantage and Biases in the NFL Betting Market (PDF file).
Although [...]