The efficient market hypothesis and gambling on National Football League games
type: CreativeWork
description: The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) for sport betting states that all publicly available information should be mirrored in betting lines, so there should be no bias of betting outcomes. Because of several similarities to financial markets, the sport betting market is thought of as a fair market. This investigation tests the EMH in the National Football League betting market from the 2002 to 2009 seasons. This study also examines whether there is a bias after a bye week in terms of the EMH. For this investigation we utilized a significance test for proportion and logistic regression. The findings suggest that, among other biases, favorites and favorites on the road won statistically more bets than their opponents after their bye week. This study provides relevant evidence of inefficiencies within NFL betting.
abstract: The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) for sport betting states that all publicly available information should be mirrored in betting lines, so there should be no bias of betting outcomes. Because of several similarities to financial markets, the sport betting market is thought of as a fair market. This investigation tests the EMH in the National Football League betting market from the 2002 to 2009 seasons. This study also examines whether there is a bias after a bye week in terms of the EMH. For this investigation we utilized a significance test for proportion and logistic regression. The findings suggest that, among other biases, favorites and favorites on the road won statistically more bets than their opponents after their bye week. This study provides relevant evidence of inefficiencies within NFL betting.
author: Sung, Yoon Tae
language: en
keywords: Efficient market hypothesis, sport betting, point spread, rest, National Football League (NFL), bye week
date published: 2011-05-25T14:58:05Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:25:23Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24338