Football Pools Sales: How Important is a Football Club in the Top Divisions?

Abstract

Having a top professional sport team in a geographical area has many potential economic impacts. In this paper we analyze the effect of having a professional football team in the Spanish First or Second Division in a certain province on the amount of sales of football pools in Spain (La Quiniela). To carry out the empirical exercise we estimate a demand equation using a panel data set at the provincial level for the years 1985-2005, merging the traditional economic models in the lotto demand literature: the effective price model and the jackpot model. Our results show that having a club in the top divisions has a significant effect on sales ofLa Quiniela. Moreover, previous results using fixture (round) data are confirmed in this paper. We also provide evidence showingLa Quiniela bets to be a normal good and, as an implicit tax, regressive.

Keywords

football pools lotto effective price jackpot

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