Using machine learning to predict basketball scores

by prasoon2211 on 1/1/2016, 8:56:49 AM with 21 comments

  • by ugexe on 1/1/2016, 6:10:27 PM

    The well known bettors will place bets knowing others will emulate it, moving the odds in favor of their real bet they have yet to place. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the big Vegas books are in on it since they make their money long term on vig, and don't have to worry about short term losses (thus enjoying any increase in bets those schemes generate).

    There is an older 60 minutes episode on Billy Walters that is a good watch for anyone interested in people trying to beat sports books.

  • by Zephyr314 on 1/1/2016, 7:44:07 PM

    Post author and co-founder of SigOpt (YC W15) here. Thanks for all the great questions and comments, I'll be around all day answering questions. Feel free to ask anything about the post or what we do at SigOpt (or how).

    All of the code can be found here: https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt-examples

    More about how SigOpt works here: https://sigopt.com/research

    Other discussions here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/3yy0vp/usi...

    and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819170

  • by bjourne on 1/1/2016, 3:01:19 PM

    Vegas odds aren't even the most accurate odds to beat. I.e you can already beat Vegas odds by looking at odds pinnacle, 5 dimes, bet 188 and consider them the true odds. It's called arbitrage betting. If you have a model that can truly beat the market, then it is the players I mentioned that you want to beat.

  • by shabbaa on 1/1/2016, 2:09:07 PM

    Baseball feels like a next step up. About 2,400 games a year. More games, data points.. more everything

  • by lordnacho on 1/1/2016, 7:02:09 PM

    It's not clear from the article what the input data is. I had a look in the repo, it wasn't clear from that either. Is it the normal fare you'd expect?

    I've heard of prop betting firms using stuff like "distance travelled by the away team" and other logical things like that.

  • by joshmn on 1/2/2016, 5:06:49 AM

    I love this, but is anyone else a bit put off by someone appending PhD in their name _on a blog post?_

    I'm not salty or anything, and it wouldn't have influenced me into reading the article or not. It just puts a bad taste in my mouth.

  • by punnerud on 1/1/2016, 3:00:51 PM

    There is a TED-talk on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ko_cWSHBU (The Math Behind Basketball's Wildest Moves)

  • by discardorama on 1/1/2016, 6:26:29 PM

    If you can reliably beat Vegas, why not put real money into it and make lots of money?