Information Aggregation and Beliefs in Experimental Parimutuel Betting Markets

Journal article: This paper studies the impact of belief elicitation on informational efficiency and individual behavior in experimental parimutuel betting markets. In one treatment, groups of eight participants, who possess a private signal about the eventual outcome, play a sequential betting game. The second treatment is identical, except that bettors are observed by eight other participants who submit incentivized beliefs about the winning probabilities of each outcome. In the third treatment, the same individuals make bets and assess the winning probabilities of the outcomes. Market probabilities more accurately reflect objective probabilities in the third than in the other two treatments. Submitting beliefs reduces the favorite-longshot bias and making bets improves the accuracy of elicited beliefs. A level-k framework provides some insights about why belief elicitation improves the capacity of betting markets to aggregate information.

Author(s)

Frédéric Koessler, Charles Noussair, Anthony Ziegelmeyer

Journal
  • Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Date of publication
  • 2012
Keywords JEL
C72 C92 D82
Keywords
  • Parimutuel betting
  • Information aggregation
  • Favorite-longshot bias
  • Elicited beliefs
  • Level-k reasoning
  • Experiment
Pages
  • 195-208
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 83