An assessment is made of the efficiency of four UK high street bookmakers’ betting odds for the 2004 European football (soccer) championships, based on an analysis of match results data from 15 previous international tournaments. Pretournament probabilities for the outright winners of Euro...

This article develops a dynamic game-theoretic model of optimizing strategic behaviour by football teams. Teams choose continuously between defensive and attacking formations and between a non-violent and a violent playing style. Starting from the end of the match and working backwards, the...

Empirical applications of the Tullock contest model are rare, due in part to the non-observability of effort. This paper presents an application of the standard Tullock model in a setting where effort can be observed and explained. A simple contest model is used to predict levels of effort in...