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Hi all,

In my final year of my mathematics degree and i have decided to take a punt at trying to use my love of sports/maths and gambling to help me get a 1st in my Mathematics degree. Not sure how this is going to go but as in all times of need i am reaching out to the only place i know that has the answers to everything. Even better than google.

Anyway not decided my question yet for my Dissertation but it will be something along the lines of...

How can Statistics be used to predict Football
How predictive can Statistics be in Football..

Etcetc something like that anyway

Basically I have chosen to work with League 1. Ive got some stats I'm gonna do some analysing and see where it goes.

First of all has anyone got any good data sources? I'm currently using this website. http://www.football-data.co.uk/data.php Seems pretty good but is not completely comprehensive for all the stats i wanted. I will be using SAS (Statistical analysis software(I think))) so probably the most used and convenient way of getting data into SAS would be through and excel spreadsheet or CSV file.

Hopefully along the way i may be able to post a few Tips on the old Tips for Tikay thread, but that is just a pipe dream.

Football data is by far the best freely available source.  It isn't perfect but for free it is excellent.

Couple of pointers for you.  Feel free to ignore them obv.

Firstly, get yourself a copy of an academic paper by Dixon and Coles called something like "modelling association football scores in football betting market" or something like that.  I still don't understand it fully after reading about five times but it forms the basis of what a lot of successful football syndicates do and the two authors now work for the two most successful syndicates and have developed their work further.  Further interesting work has been done by a couple of Greek guys whose names escape me right now and latterly by a guy called Alun Owen at Loughborough.  I am friends with Alun and we do some work together so if you want contact details for him let me know.

Secondly, get acquainted with rankings systems.  Read up on ELO rankings (Tal might know a bit about these as I think they form the basis of ranking chess players now) and if you want to see how they work with football then pick up a copy of the Racing and Football Outlook and look for Alex Deacons columns every week which are pretty good.  Finally if you want to look at it from a betting perpective you could do worse than buy Kevin Pulleins book for the Racing Post called Football Betting or something similar.

Finally, take a look at www.statsbomb.com.  It isn't primarily betting based but the owner of the site is heavily involved in sports betting and they are doing a lot of interesting stuff with analytics (to my mind anyway) and predictions.  The current vogue in soccer analytics seems to revolve around shots and shot positions which may, or may not, interest you although one point I would make is if you want to delve into particularly stat rich areas you would be better off in the EPL than League 1 as I am not sure how much data is freely available on those kind of things in the lower leagues.

Thanks,

Some really helpful stuff in there and i may come and pick you for them contact details at some point latter down the line. The reason i picked league 1 is because the premiership/championship feels like its been done or being done so it felt like i had some scope to "copy" or reproduce stuff that had been done in the premiership on League 1 etc. Not sure if this is the right thinking or not but felt like a good way to go about things. Im really not sure how much work im going to have to put into this. Massively vague at the minute we dont get "10,000 words" or whatever as a guideline its just go crack on with it etc....

Really looking forward to it.

Will speak to Tal as long as he does not get me into Chess betting. I draw the line. Value is Value but Chess is Chess.

This is right up my street. Love stats and analysis, love footy and love punting.

glgl, will be reading intently

Just downloaded this, and got the numbers game "why everything you know about soccer is wrong" on hold from the library. Some nice light reading for me tonight! Incredible the university library stuff. I just litterally pumped in "modelling association football scores in football betting market" into a search on there and it was the first answer on there and within two minutes Ive got it downloaded. Crazy.

If you are planning on getting a good mark in this, then I am struggling to see how you can use it to your advantage here.

So much better things to use statistics for than football and gambling to achieve a decent mark

There are better things in the world than football and gambling?  are you talking about girls?

I could pick something boring that does not excite me or do it on something i enjoy. Considering i have to do it for a whole year id rather pick something i enjoy thinking about!

Where as I would rather pick something, that shows stats to their full potential, with a better chance of a better mark.

@experimental361

does some very interesting tactical/stats graphics for the lower leagues

suggest you take a look could be ideal

When I did my dissertation, I submitted three titles specifically designed to be interesting. Should pretty much be the only criterion IMO. Had a blast doing it (on a very different topic to yours and not to everyone's tastes, granted) even though I've pretty much never used anything I learned since.

The thing with stats is that I don't think they are shown fully in sport, therefore I think stats would be better shown elsewhere, perhaps in business or financially.

There doesn't seem to be fully precise or stable when using stats to look at gambling too.

*shrug*

But good look callum

+1 for this guy.

Stat wizard.

The Buffalo Bills have just hired a chap to run a new department - the first in the NFL - in Analytics.

Thought you might find that interesting

Just catching up on this thread as like my disertation it has been on the back burner for a week!


Now following! Anyone else on twitter notice that as soon as you follow a football/betting tipster/stats man that you end up with like +20 followers every time of other tipping sites?

Surely these teams have had analytics type departments for ages or is that just my naivety. On my placement i worked in an analytics department, would have thought most major sports used statisticsions lots now

I agree that it would be say easier or enable me to get a better mark doing something different but i enjoy doing this and me keeping interest in something for a year will definiatly be key to be getting a good grade or not.

Also a lot of people seem to use their dissertation topic in interviews when they are asked to present a piece of work and i think it will be more interesting to present this espically going into the world of work i want to go into its a very male dominated market and lots of people nowadays have a punt and end up asking questions that would seem pretty obvious to people that have been around the betting world for a while but complete muggles or ice creams even simple ideas can switch on a lightbulb in their head!

Yes and no.

I've no doubt teams have been Moneyballing for a few years, but this is the first (AFAIK) actual Analytics Department in an NFL Franchise.

BUMP!

Small update, not done nearly as much work on this as i should have but hey i l;eave everything like this to the last minute im happy ive even started! Anyway update i have switched to the premiership!

I have to do a presentation in January which is the first main update of where we are up to so at least i have a goal to aim towards and i have just started that presentation tonight and also got cracking on my introduction for my main report.

Im a really bad starter at these things so glad i have got under way.

I will endevour to post questions in here when i get to them! Been emailing Opta about data but they have seemed really unhelpful anyone else had this problem with them?

Suggestion: post ITT something new and interesting you've learned. You choose how often, but make it realistic. Don't choose every day but don't choose once a month either!

Decide on the level of detail you want to go into, but it will serve as a reference point for you and a milepost to keep you on check.

Entirely up to you.