Do tennisbetting odds reflect objectiverankings: evidence from ATP

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines the extent to which betting odds in professional men’s tennis reflect ATP ranking differences and whether home advantage provides additional explanatory power beyond rankings. The analysis uses match-level data from 4,778 ATP singles matches played between 2021 and 2025 across twelve Grand Slam, Masters 1000, and ATP 500 tournaments. Bet365 decimal odds are converted into normalized implied probabilities, while ATP ranking difference is used as the main measure of relative player quality. Home advantage is measured through separate dummy variables indicating whether the eventual winner or loser competed in his home country. Ordinary least squares regressions show that a larger ranking advantage for the eventual winner is associated with a higher implied winning probability. The results also indicate that home-country status is reflected in betting odds after controlling for ranking differences and tournament characteristics. Winner home advantage is associated with an approximately 3.6 percentage point higher implied probability, while loser home advantage is associated with an approximately 2.9 percentage point lower probability for the winner. The model explains about 29.4 percent of the variation in winner implied probabilities. The findings suggest that betting odds incorporate both objective ranking information and match-specific contextual factors. However, the results represent conditional associations rather than causal effects and should not be interpreted as a complete test of betting market efficiency.