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A master thesis from Aalborg University

Vurdering af antal mål i fodboldkampe

[Assessing the number of goals in soccer matches]

Author(s)

Term

2. term

Education

Publication year

2008

Submitted on

2008-06-12

Pages

75 pages

Abstract

This project proposes a number of models, for assessing the number of goals scored in a soccer match. The motivation lies in the challenge of au- tomatizing the task of setting odds for certain type of goal bets in soc- cer betting. The models proposed uses historic result data solely, each in its own way, to assess the probabilities for the number of goals. The models use empirical probability, Poisson dis- tributions and the concepts of offnsive strength and defensive weakness. Each of the proposed assessors are measured with each other and compared to the assessments made by actual bookmak- ers. The evaluation is based on hypoth- esis testing using scoring rules. The re- sults of this report conclude that, it is very dicult to create automatic prob- ability assessors which can outperform the bookmakers. However it is possi- ble, through rather simple methods, to create assessments which are very close to those of the bookmakers.

Dette projekt fremsætter en række modeller til at vurdere antallet af mål i en fodboldkamp. Motivationen ligger i at automatisere processen for at vurdere sandsynligheder og sætte odds på en sports begivenhed. Modellerne i denne rapport benytter bl.a. historisk fodbold data, empirisk sandsynlighed, Poisson fordelinger og koncepter som offensiv styrke og defensiv svaghed, til at vurdere sandsynligheden for at antallet af mål i en kamp. De forskellige tilgange er optimeret, og implementeret. De er blevet sammenlignet og evalueret med grundlag i en logaritmisk scorings funktion. Resultaterne er evalueret ved brug af hypotese test og Wilcoxons Signed-Rank Test. Resultaterne viser, at det er vanskeligt at lave en automatisk vurdering af antallet af mål i en fodboldkamp der kan matche en bookmakers vurdering. Dog er det påvist at de tilgange der er præsenteret i rapporten, ikke er langt efter bookmakeren, og viser gode perspektiver til at kunne anvendes til automatisk odds-sætning.

Keywords

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