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Folk beliefs and fast thinking: an empirical test of the coffin trap in greyhound racing
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Date
2025
Authors
Butler, Robert
Butler, David
Gaine, Bill
Journal Title
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Volume Title
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Now Publishers
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Abstract
Many intuitions evolve into folk beliefs that are shared and persist within a community. These offer dubious cues to influence decision-making. We examine a natural setting where folk belief can be empirically testable: the sport of greyhound racing. This community maintain that greyhounds drawn in Trap 4 – the ‘Coffin Trap’ – are disadvantaged and ought to be avoided by bettors. Using data from 78,595 greyhound performances in Great Britain, we empirically test the accuracy of this enduring intuition. Controlling for pre- and within-race conditions, our results support the community intuition. The ‘Coffin Trap’ significantly disadvantages greyhound and this is not reflected in market odds. This finding are robust across races and empirical estimators. As there is no scientific basis for the origin of this belief, these results substantiate the success of a culturally surviving intuition. We conjecture that a valid cue has emerged from learning over time within the community.
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Keywords
Decision-making , Judgement , Trap , Greyhound racing , Belief
Citation
Butler, R., Butler, D. and Gaine, B. (2025) 'Folk beliefs and fast thinking: an empirical test of the coffin trap in greyhound racing' [forthcoming], Review of Behavioral Economics.