The economics of free bets

IF 2 4区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Economics Letters Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-10-09 DOI:10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113289

Karl Whelan

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Sportsbooks offer promotional “free bets” that return profits if the bets win, but not the stake provided. These bets can be hedged to produce guaranteed profits. This paper shows how to value the guaranteed profit from these stake-not-returned free bets under a simple constant-margin pricing rule in which sportsbooks, on average, keep a fraction

m

of the money staked. The guaranteed hedged value is a nonlinear function of the free bet’s probability of winning, reaching a maximum when this probability is

\sqrt{m (1 - m)}

. Empirical evidence from odds on tennis bets confirms this prediction.

查看原文本刊更多论文

免费赌博的经济学

体育博彩公司提供促销性的“免费投注”，如果投注赢了，就返还利润，但不返还所提供的赌注。这些押注可以对冲以保证利润。本文展示了如何在一个简单的恒定保证金定价规则下评估这些下注不回报的免费赌注的保证利润，在这个规则下，体育博彩公司平均只保留赌注的一小部分。保证的对冲值是自由下注获胜概率的非线性函数，当该概率为m（1 - m）时达到最大值。来自网球投注赔率的经验证据证实了这一预测。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Economics Letters ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

5.00%

发文量

348

审稿时长

30 days

期刊介绍： Many economists today are concerned by the proliferation of journals and the concomitant labyrinth of research to be conquered in order to reach the specific information they require. To combat this tendency, Economics Letters has been conceived and designed outside the realm of the traditional economics journal. As a Letters Journal, it consists of concise communications (letters) that provide a means of rapid and efficient dissemination of new results, models and methods in all fields of economic research.