Good Girl, Bad Boy? Evidence Consistent with Collusion in Professional Tennis

摘要

We identify professional tennis matches where one player competes for extraordinarily high payoffs while their opposition does not. Players "on the bubble" of direct qualification to upcoming Grand Slam events face substantially higher stakes than opponents, which presents an opportunity for collusion. Our findings produce evidence that is consistent with the hypothesis of unethical behavior taking place on the men's tour, as bubble players are 5.1 percentage points more likely to beat better ranked opponents than in comparable nonbubble matches. However, no such evidence emerges when analyzing women's tennis. We find additional support for the hypothesis of match-fixing activities on the men's tour from analyzing the occurrence of tie-breaks and the fact that our results become stronger once monetary incentives were increased after the 2013 season. Finally, the betting market does not predict this phenomenon, further confirming our suspicion of irregular activities.