A profitable strategy in the pelota betting market

Abstract

In pelota matches, games with two mutually exclusive and exhaustive outcomes, bets on the winner are made between viewers through a middleman who receives 16% of the finally paid amount. In this paper after the description of the way bets are made in the market we analyze what we call the general odds rule. Analyzing the way odds are fixed in the market we find that assuming equal return on bets there are biases in the market. Moreover, we find profitable betting strategies even taking commissions into account.