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

Alasdair Brown and J Reade

European Journal of Operational Research, 2019, vol. 272, issue 3, 1073-1081

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.

Keywords: OR in sports; Sports betting; Tipsters; Wisdom of crowds (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:272:y:2019:i:3:p:1073-1081

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2018.07.015

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