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Evidence of bettors’ belief in the “Hot Hand” -- bettors believing teams on winning streaks will continue winning -- exists in the NBA but not the NFL. Previous research assumed that book makers set point spreads to balance betting on games. Recent research shows imbalanced betting in most markets, suggesting the point spreads may not reflect behavioral biases like the “hot hand.” We find a significant increase in bets on teams on winning streaks, suggesting that belief in the “hot hand” in the NFL exists, although simple strategies of betting against teams on a winning streak does not lead to excess returns.

Previous research on CEO turnover indicates that a number of factors, including age, firm performance, and expected firm performance affect CEO turnover. Measurement of expected performance in these studies is typically based on investment analysts’ forecasts of earnings; these expectations potentially suffer from a number of problems, including the tendency for CEOs to “manage” analysts’ expectations. We examine the relationship between performance expectations and CEO turnover using data from NCAA Division I-A college football using a market-determined measure of expected performance, winning percentage against point spreads; this expected performance measure does not suffer from many of the problems that plague analysts’ earnings forecasts. We find that performance expectations, actual expectations, and tenure affect CEO turnover in NCAA Division I-A college football, based on performance data from 102 Division I-A football programs over the period 1980-2004.

The determinants of the total number of bets placed on games from three on-line sports books are analyzed for the 2008‐9 NCAA basketball season. Betting volume depends on television coverage, temporal factors, the quality of the teams, and the expected closeness of the contest. Our results support the notion that consumption benefits motivate gambling rather than financial gain. Preferences of bettors appear similar to those of sports fans, suggesting that modeling gamblers as wealth‐maximizing investors may not be appropriate, and supports the predictions of the model of gambling developed by Conlisk (1993).