Prize and Risk-Taking Strategy in Tournaments: Evidence from Professional Poker Players

Jungmin Lee

No 1345, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study examines whether people optimally respond to prize incentives for risk taking in tournaments. I exploit the television game show World Poker Tour as a natural experiment. The results show that professional players strategically choose the degree of risk taking depending on the incentives implied by the prize structure they face. I find that they are more sensitive to losses than to gains.

Keywords: risk; tournament; poker (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D8 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2004-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-spo
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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