Game Over: Empirical Support for Soccer Bets Regulation

31 Pages Posted: 14 Dec 2010 Last revised: 21 Dec 2010

See all articles by Emanuel V. Towfigh

Emanuel V. Towfigh

EBS Law School; Peking University School of Transnational Law; Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Andreas Glöckner

University of Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Date Written: October 1, 2009

Abstract

In many countries, betting in sports is highly regulated. In Germany, however, there are current debates whether regulation should be loosened. A crucial part of the argument is that sport bets could be qualified as ‘games of skill’ that are considered to be less dangerous by German Law than ‘games of chance’, and are thus assumed to need less regulation. We explore this hypothesis in three incentivized online studies on soccer betting (N=214) and provide evidence against two crucial parts of this argument. First, we show that there are no overall effects of skill on accuracy in soccer bets and monetary earnings do not increase with skill. Hence, soccer betting cannot be considered a game of skill. Second, we show that soccer betting induces strong overconfidence and illusion of control, particularly for people who assume they have high skill, and that these biases lead to increased betting. Cognitive biases that might cause financial harm for bettors or even lead to problematic or pathological gambling behavior are even stronger for soccer bets compared to bets on the outcome of lotteries. Concerning the main aims of legal regulation for gambling in German law, our results strongly speak for regulation of soccer bets.

Keywords: Betting, Judgments, Overconfidence, Illusion of Control, Expertise

Suggested Citation

Towfigh, Emanuel V. and Glöckner, Andreas, Game Over: Empirical Support for Soccer Bets Regulation (October 1, 2009). MPI Collective Goods Preprint, No. 2010/33, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1724602 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1724602

Emanuel V. Towfigh

EBS Law School ( email )

Gustav-Stresemann-Ring 3
Wiesbaden, 65189
Germany
+49 611 7102-2253 (Phone)
+49 611 7102-10-2253 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.lehrstuhl-towfigh.de

Peking University School of Transnational Law ( email )

Peking Univ. Shenzhen Campus
University Town, Xili, Nanshan District
Shenzhen, 518055
China

Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods ( email )

Kurt-Schumacher-Str. 10
Bonn, 53113
Germany
+49 228 91416-30 (Phone)
+49 228 91416-930 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.coll.mpg.de/56559/prof-dr-iur-emanuel-towfigh.html

Andreas Glöckner (Contact Author)

University of Cologne ( email )

Richard-Strauss-Str. 2
Köln, 50931
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://soccco.uni-koeln.de/andreas-gloeckner.html

Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods ( email )

Kurt-Schumacher-Str. 10
D-53113 Bonn, 53113
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.coll.mpg.de/team/page/andreas_gloeckner

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