A betting rule is devised to profit from an alleged unwillingness of strong favorites in the National Basketball Association to cover large point spreads. Imaginary wagers placed on NBA underdogs awarded 10+ points by Las Vegas oddsmakers produced a significantly nonrandom wins-to-bets ratio of...

The expanding legalization of sports betting will most assuredly swell the ranks of bettors nationwide and invariably attract some who would gamble less for financial gain than for entertainment value. While random betting can quickly end the fun for these "recreational bettors," we propose a...

Two mechanical betting rules that had exposed biases in previous studies were applied to National Football League games for the five consecutive seasons ending with the 2003 Super Bowl. Although bets on home teams produced only break-even results, wagers on underdogs posed a serious challenge to...

Two mechanical betting rules were applied to games in the National Football League for the 2000-2008 seasons. Wagers of $11 (to win $10) on all NFL underdogs produced a net loss of $717. When bets were limited to visiting underdogs, only $395 (or $44 per year) was lost. The results suggest that...