The Bernoulli spatial scan statistic is used to detect localised clusters in binary labelled point data, such as that used in spatial or spatio-temporal case/control studies. We test the inferential capability of a recently developed beta-Bernoulli spatial scan statistic, which adds a beta prior to the original statistic. This pilot study, which includes two test scenarios with 6,000 data sets each,
suggests a marked increase in power for a given false alert rate. We suggest a more extensive study would be worthwhile to corroborate the findings. We also speculate on an explanation for the observed improvement