Related papers: Parity and Predictability of Competitions
Statistical modelling of sports data has become more and more popular in the recent years and different types of models have been proposed to achieve a variety of objectives: from identifying the key characteristics which lead a team to win…
This paper employs a Skellam process to represent real-time betting odds for English Premier League (EPL) soccer games. Given a matrix of market odds on all possible score outcomes, we estimate the expected scoring rates for each team. The…
The analysis of games and sports as complex systems can give insights into the dynamics of human competition, and has been proven useful in soccer, basketball, and other professional sports. In this paper we present a model for dodgeball, a…
A random walk-like model is considered to discuss statistical aspects of tournaments. The model is applied to soccer leagues with emphasis on the scores. This competitive system was computationally simulated and the results are compared…
Models in which the number of goals scored by a team in a soccer match follow a Poisson distribution, or a closely related one, have been widely discussed. We here consider a soccer match as an experiment to assess which of two teams is…
This study applies complexity sciences to analyze the game of Padel. Data from 18 professional matches were collected, and the probability distributions of the total number of shots and the probability distribution of rallies' duration were…
This paper reframes approachability theory within the context of population games. Thus, whilst one player aims at driving her average payoff to a predefined set, her opponent is not malevolent but rather extracted randomly from a…
With the growing adoption of machine learning (ML) systems in areas like law enforcement, criminal justice, finance, hiring, and admissions, it is increasingly critical to guarantee the fairness of decisions assisted by ML. In this paper,…
Probabilistic modeling is an effective tool for evaluating team performance and predicting outcomes in sports. However, an important question that hasn't been fully explored is whether these models can reliably reflect actual performance…
We consider the two-sided stable matching setting in which there may be uncertainty about the agents' preferences due to limited information or communication. We consider three models of uncertainty: (1) lottery model --- in which for each…
We investigate the time evolution of lead changes within individual games of competitive team sports. Exploiting ideas from the theory of random walks, the number of lead changes within a single game follows a Gaussian distribution. We show…
In the four major North American professional sports (baseball, basketball, football, and hockey), the primary purpose of the regular season is to determine which teams most deserve to advance to the playoffs. Interestingly, while the…
Inefficient markets allow investors to consistently outperform the market. To demonstrate that inefficiencies exist in sports betting markets, we created a betting algorithm that generates above market returns for the NFL, NBA, NCAAF,…
This paper aims to reduce randomness in football by analysing the role of lineups in final scores using machine learning prediction models we have developed. Football clubs invest millions of dollars on lineups and knowing how individual…
Evaluating the accuracies of models for match outcome predictions is nice and well but in the end the real proof is in the money to be made by betting. To evaluate the question whether the models developed by us could be used easily to make…
We present a new way of estimation of the role of chance in achieving success, by comparing the empirical data from 100-meter dash competitions (one of the sports disciplines with the most stringent controls of external randomness), with…
Mean-payoff games are important quantitative models for open reactive systems. They have been widely studied as games of full observation. In this paper we investigate the algorithmic properties of several sub-classes of mean-payoff games…
We investigated the performance of the collective intelligence of NFL fans predicting the outcome of games as realized through the Vegas betting lines. Using data from 2560 games (all post-expansion, regular- and post-season games from…
In all competitions where results are based upon an individual's performance the question of whether the outcome is a consequence of skill or luck arises. We explore this question through an analysis of a large dataset of approximately one…
Tennis is a popular sport worldwide, boasting millions of fans and numerous national and international tournaments. Like many sports, tennis has benefitted from the popularity of rigorous record-keeping of game and player information, as…