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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Brigham Young University

Series

2008

Race

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Racial Bias In The Nba: Implications In Betting Markets, Tim Larsen, Joe Prince, Justin Wolfers Apr 2008

Racial Bias In The Nba: Implications In Betting Markets, Tim Larsen, Joe Prince, Justin Wolfers

Faculty Publications

Recent studies have documented the existence of an own-race bias on the part of sports officials. In this paper we explore the implications of these biases on betting markets. We use data from the 1991/92 - 2004/05 NBA regular seasons to show that a betting strategy exploiting own-race biases by referees would systematically beat the spread.