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Household consumption decisions: will expanding sports betting impact health?

Review of Economics of the Household volume 18, pages 1079–1100 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

We use data from the Canadian Survey of Household Spending to analyze the relationship between household consumption of four categories of leisure goods and services: sports betting, exercise, watching television, and attending live sporting events. Spending on exercise can affect household health. Recent policy changes expanded access to legal sports betting. Clear theoretical links exist among all four categories. Results from AIDS/QUAIDS models show that household consumption of these leisure goods and services are substitutes, except for attending sporting events and watching television, which are complements. These results have important implications for both health and gambling policy.

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Notes

  1. World Health Organization Fact Sheet https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity, accessed August 5, 2019.

  2. Betting on single-event sports is currently legal in the UK, much of the European Union, and Australia.

  3. Other recent papers using components of price indices to construct price measures are (Blacklow et al. 2010; Blow et al. 2015; Chang and Serletis 2014; Lakkakula et al. 2016).

  4. This includes the basic AIDS and QUAIDS models, the AIDS and QUAIDS model augmented with demographic characteristics using both the unweighted and weighted samples.

  5. The only exceptions are the compensated own price elasticities for “Cable” and the uncompensated own price elasticity for “Attend” in the weighted AIDS model that excludes the base year and is augmented with all demographic characteristics except education.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by funds to the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and Statistics Canada. Although the research and analysis are based on data from Statistics Canada, the opinions expressed do not represent the views of Statistics Canada. We thank Irene Wong for her kind help in the University of Alberta Research Data Centre.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, John Chambers College of Business and Economics, PO Box 6025, Morgantown, WV, 26506-6025, USA

    Brad R. Humphreys & Jane E. Ruseski

  2. Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Government of Alberta, 10155 102 Street, Edmonton, AB, T5J 4L4, Canada

    Jie Yang

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  1. Brad R. Humphreys
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  2. Jane E. Ruseski
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  3. Jie Yang
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Correspondence to Jane E. Ruseski.

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Humphreys, B.R., Ruseski, J.E. & Yang, J. Household consumption decisions: will expanding sports betting impact health?. Rev Econ Household 18, 1079–1100 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-019-09474-x

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