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.

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Racial Bias in the NBA: Implications in Betting Markets
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1Brigham Young University - Utah
1Brigham Young University - Utah
1The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania/ CEPR/IZA/NBER
Citation Information: Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages –, ISSN (Online) 1559-0410, DOI: 10.2202/1559-0410.1112, April 2008
Publication History:
- Published Online:
- 2008-04-28
Keywords: betting markets; basketball; own-race bias


















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