Promotional Offers of Sportsbooks: Risk of Gambling Addiction and The Ideal Bettor

This thesis discusses the implications of sports gambling from a perspective of addiction and promotions offered by sportsbooks. It discusses the background behind the recent legalization of sports gambling in the U.S., the potential result of gambling addiction, the different types of promotions commonly offered by sportsbooks, how these promotions relate to psychological phenomena related to gambling addiction, and how an ideal bettor could use these promotions to their advantage in order to best avoid addiction and losing excessive money. The data on the promotions used for analysis was collected primarily from DraftKings and manipulated in order to find expected returns, implied probabilities, and other relevant information. There is a discussion of how an ideal bettor could utilize the promotions commonly offered to consumers in order to make money on new platforms and theoretically avoid losing as much money by continuously betting in a strategic way.