Similarly, bets placed on less popular sporting events had greater average returns potentially reflecting greater customer sophistication and knowledge raising the possibility of a proportion of bettors being more ‘skilled’.
More specific handicap and total bets were placed by fewer customers, but were larger bets with the greatest returns. The most popular bets placed to win, had a relatively high rate of losses and lowest average returns, which may reflect less sophisticated betting behaviour. More than three-quarters (77.63 %) of the bets were losses and there was large variation in bet size between bet types and events bet on although average bets were higher than in previously reported studies. Sports betting was dominated by ball sports, reflecting popular interest in these events. The majority of bets placed were for a win (45.31 %) and were placed on races (86.74 %) or sports (11.29 %). This paper describes the results of an analysis of 2,522,299 bets placed with an Australian online wagering operator over a 1-year period. However, few studies have examined online betting based on actual behavioural data. Online wagering is increasing in popularity as it is easily accessible through websites which market these services widely.
