An individual's behavioural attitudes toward variance and non-symmetry
in the payoff distributions of pari-mutuel gambles are empirically ex
amined using the von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility of wealth pa
radigm. Preferences over payoff distributions for a representative bet
ter are estimated from observed payoffs at a greyhound racetrack. The
results indicate that the representative better exhibits increasing ab
solute risk aversion and, given that the representative better is loca
lly non-satiated with regard to wealth, exhibits preference for varian
ce and aversion to positive skewness in the payoff distributions of th
e gambles examined.