The Illusion of Control, The Structures of Prizes and The Demand For Football Pools in Spain

Abstract

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis paper is based on the report "Las quinielas de fútbol en España: "comprar un sueño" y algo más, financed by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional". We are grateful to Angel García, Juan Prieto, Josep Lluis Raymond and the participants at the seminars at the University of Oviedo and the University of the Balearic Islands for their comments on earlier stages of this work. The first author wishes to express his gratitude for financial support from DGI grant No. BEC2002-04294-C02-02. The usual disclaimer applies. 1 AbstractUsing data for all the fixtures for the seasons from 1972-73 to 2002-03, we estimate a dynamic model of demand for football pools in Spain paying attention to whether their main economic explanatory variable is the effective price of a ticket or the jackpot. Additionally, we evaluate the importance of the composition of the list of games in terms of whether First Division matches are included or not. Results show that the jackpot model is preferred to the effective price model, having important implications in terms of how the structure of the game should be changed in order to increase demand.