The wisdom of amateur crowds: Evidence from an online community of sports tipsters

Brown, Alasdair and Reade, J. James (2019) The wisdom of amateur crowds: Evidence from an online community of sports tipsters. European Journal of Operational Research, 272 (3). pp. 1073-1081. ISSN 0377-2217

[thumbnail of Accepted manuscript]
Preview
PDF (Accepted manuscript) - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

We analyse the accuracy of crowd forecasts produced on Oddsportal, an online community of amateur sports tipsters. Tipsters in this community are ranked according to the betting return on their tips, but there are no prizes for accuracy. Nevertheless, we find that aggregated tips in this community contain information not in betting prices. A strategy of betting when a majority predict an outcome produces average returns of 1.317% for 68,339 events. The accuracy of these forecasts stems from the wisdom of the whole crowd, as selecting sections of the crowd based on experience or past forecast accuracy does not improve betting returns.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: or in sports,sports betting,tipsters,wisdom of crowds
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Applied Econometrics And Finance
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 06 Jul 2018 09:30
Last Modified: 21 Oct 2022 19:32
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/67529
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2018.07.015

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item