Estimating Preferences Under Risk: The Case of Racetrack Bettors

Abstract

We investigate in this paper the attitudes toward risk of bettors in British horse races. The model we use allows us to go beyond the expected utility framework and to explore various alternative proposals by estimating a multinomial model on a 34443-race data set. We find that rank-dependent utility models do not fit the data better than expected utility models. On the other hand, cumulative prospect theory has higher explanatory power. Our preferred estimates suggest a pattern of local risk-aversion similar to that proposed by Friedman-Savage.