English

Utility-Invariant Support Selection and Eventwise Decoupling for Simultaneous Independent Multi-Outcome Bets

Optimization and Control 2026-03-26 v1 Portfolio Management

Abstract

For simultaneous independent events with finitely many outcomes, consider the expected-utility problem with nonnegative wagers and an endogenous cash position. We prove a short support theorem for a broad class of strictly increasing strictly concave utilities. On any fixed support family and at any optimal portfolio with positive cash, summing the active first-order conditions and comparing that sum with cash stationarity yields the exact identity λK(U)=1P,A1Q,A, \frac{\lambda}{K_{\ell}^{(U)}}=\frac{1-P_{\ell,A}}{1-Q_{\ell,A}}, where P,AP_{\ell,A} and Q,AQ_{\ell,A} are the active probability and price masses of event \ell, λ\lambda is the budget multiplier, and K(U)K_{\ell}^{(U)} is the continuation factor seen by inactive outcomes of that event. Consequently, after sorting each event by the edge ratio pi/πip_{\ell i}/\pi_{\ell i}, the exact active support is the eventwise union of the single-event supports, and this support is independent of the utility function. The single-event utility-invariant support theorem is already explicit in the free-exposure pari-mutuel setting in Smoczynski and Miles; the point of the present note is that the simultaneous independent-events analogue follows from the same state-price geometry once the right continuation factor is identified.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.24064,
  title  = {Utility-Invariant Support Selection and Eventwise Decoupling for Simultaneous Independent Multi-Outcome Bets},
  author = {Christopher D. Long},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.24064},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

7 pages, no figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:36:56.452Z