A profitable model for predicting the over/under market in football

Wheatcroft, Edward ORCID: 0000-0002-7301-0889 (2020) A profitable model for predicting the over/under market in football. International Journal of Forecasting, 36 (3). 916 - 932. ISSN 0169-2070

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Abstract

The over/under 2.5 goals betting market allows gamblers to bet on whether the total number of goals in a football match will exceed 2.5. In this paper, a set of ratings, named ‘Generalised Attacking Performance’ (GAP) ratings, are defined which measure the attacking and defensive performance of each team in a league. GAP ratings are used to forecast matches in ten European football leagues and their profitability is tested in the over/under market using two value betting strategies. GAP ratings with match statistics such as shots and shots on target as inputs are shown to yield better predictive value than the number of goals. An average profit of around 0.8 percent per bet taken is demonstrated over twelve years when using only shots and corners (and not goals) as inputs. The betting strategy is shown to be robust by comparing it to a random betting strategy.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/internationa...
Additional Information:	© 2020 International Institute of Forecasters.
Divisions:	Centre for Analysis of Time Series
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics H Social Sciences > HA Statistics
Date Deposited:	10 Mar 2020 09:39
Last Modified:	07 Apr 2024 01:00
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/103712

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