The favorite long-shot bias is a phenomenon that has been studied extensively in gambling markets. A question has arisen naturally: does this bias exist in financial markets?
In a paper entitled “The Favorite /Long-shot Bias in S&P 500 and FTSE 100 Index Futures Options: The Return to Bets and the Cost of Insurance”, Hodges, Tompkins and Ziemba examined whether the favorite/long-shot bias that has been found in gambling markets (particularly in horse racing markets) applies to options markets. The motivation came from the fact that puts and calls on stock index futures represent leveraged short or long positions on the index and their behavior might have similar features to racetrack bets.
The authors found that both call and put options on the S&P 500 (and FTSE 100 to some degree) with one and three months to expiration display a relationship between probabilities of finishing in the money and expected returns that is very similar to the favorite long-shot bias in horse racing markets. In another word, they found evidence that was consistent with the hypothesis that investors tend to overpay for put options as the expected cost of insurance and call options as low-cost, high-payoff gambles.
This finding is consistent with results published by other researchers under the general framework of the volatility risk premium which refers to the fact that implied volatility in equity index options often tends to overstate realized volatility. In fact, the favorite/long-shot bias provides an alternative explanation for the existence of volatility risk premium.
For practitioners, a question arose: how to structure a position that takes advantage of the favorite long-shot bias?
