Market structure and prices in online betting markets: theory and evidence
Tadgh Hegarty, Karl Whelan · Oxford Economic Papers
Main finding
Bookmakers facing less competition set prices with a favourite–longshot bias, while the competitive market shows little of it; the model's prediction about returns on draws is also supported. Working-paper versions describe a sample of tens of thousands of matches (later drafts cite over 150,000).
Limitations
A comparison of two market types with a stylised demand model; the sample size differs between versions of the paper.
Study details
- Authors
- Tadgh Hegarty, Karl Whelan
- Published
- 2026 (first online 2025)
- Venue
- Oxford Economic Papers 78(1), 90–113
- Status
- Published
- Evidence type
- Peer-reviewed empirical
- Evidence strength
- Moderate (our assessment of how much weight the finding can bear)
- Sport
- Association football (European leagues)
- Markets
- Fixed-odds match result (home, draw, away) in more and less competitive bookmaker markets
- Method
- A model of bookmaker pricing when bettors disagree, comparing monopoly-like and competitive market structures, tested on European football odds from two kinds of bookmaking market.
- Sample
- Many seasons of European football odds; the exact sample is described in the paper.
- Replication
- Not applicable.
Read the original
doi:10.1093/oep/gpaf023 (opens in a new tab)
Our summary is an original paraphrase for education. Verification: Bibliographic record checked against publisher, index or author listings. The 150,000-match figure appears in a 2025 working-paper draft; we could not confirm it in the published abstract. Checked 2026-10-25.