Author ORCID Identifier:
Date of Graduation
7-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration (PhD)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Accounting
Advisor/Mentor
Cassell, Cory
Committee Member
Rawson, Caleb
Second Committee Member
Allee, Kris
Keywords
Earnings announcements; Google Trends; Information search; Lottery-type stocks; Retail investor attention; Sports betting legalization
Abstract
I examine whether the legalization of online sports betting is associated with a reallocation of retail investors' information search across stocks around firm earnings announcements (EAs). Prior work links legalization to a reallocation of household capital, but its association with information search has not been examined. Exploiting the staggered timing of legalization following Murphy v. NCAA, I use four treated and four matched control states over 2017-2024 and measure search using state-level Google Trends data for firm tickers. Treated and control states are already on different trajectories before any legalization, which confounds the average-level comparison. The association I can document is therefore only cross-sectional. Legalization is associated with a higher search for large, lottery-type stocks, concentrated in states and periods when sportsbook search is elevated rather than when general sports-media engagement is. The shift I can document is in the composition of retail information search rather than its level.
Citation
Stark, J. R. (2026). Online Sports Betting Legalization and the Reallocation of Retail Investor Information Search Toward Lottery-type Stocks. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/6322
