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Show HN: Football Prediction API

boggio-analytics.com

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Re: Show HN: Football Prediction API

#21

Post by rorygreig »

notahacker wrote: post #18
rorygreig wrote: post #16

This seems too good to be true. If they could actually predict football results with better-than-random accuracy, then why wouldn't they just use this themselves to make loads of money on betting markets?

I don't think they're claiming their statistics-based predictions are necessarily more accurate than the bookmakers' odds

Good point, I suppose "69%" accuracy doesn't actually mean that much unless you consider the odds.

I'm pretty sure I could predict Real Madrid vs. my local home town team with better than 69% accuracy, but that doesn't mean much

Re: Show HN: Football Prediction API

#25

Post by boggio »

rorygreig wrote: post #21
notahacker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're claiming their statistics-based predictions are necessarily more accurate than the bookmakers' odds

Good point, I suppose "69%" accuracy doesn't actually mean that much unless you consider the odds. I'm pretty sure I could predict Real Madrid vs. my local home town team with better than 69% accuracy, but that doesn't mean much

Well sure, but there are over 2200 games per month and less than 3-5% are the kind of games you are talking about. Super good team vs terrible team (assuming your local home town team is not Barcelona)

Re: Show HN: Football Prediction API

#26

Post by bostonpete »

CJefferson wrote: post #10
bostonpete wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most native English speakers call it soccer.

Really? Everyone I know calls the sport football. The second F in FIFA is football. I know Americans call it soccer, but that is I assume because of American football, a sport no other country seems to play, or care about.

> I know Americans call it soccer

Correct, and most native English speakers are American. That doesn't even account for Canada or Australia where it has also traditionally been called soccer.

The fact that the "F" stands for "Football" in the name of an organization with a French name seems irrelevant.

Re: Show HN: Football Prediction API

#27

Post by ubertaco »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #4
joncrane wrote: post #2

I think you should call it "soccer" or at least "association football" in this context.

Why?

Because any good developer should, when presenting a product in an international market, consider i18n (which involves more than just "translate from language A to language B").

Re: Show HN: Football Prediction API

#28

Post by bmlevy9 »

boggio wrote: post #19
rorygreig wrote: post #16

This seems too good to be true. If they could actually predict football results with better-than-random accuracy, then why wouldn't they just use this themselves to make loads of money on betting markets?

It has 69% accuracy, that means you still lose 31% of the time.

69% is a huge number in terms of sports betting. Typically to be profitable you need to be in the 52% - 56% arena to be profitable, so this is significantly profitable

Re: Show HN: Football Prediction API

#29

Post by kefir_cultist »

Interesting but football is such a terrible sport to predict statistically outside of a few teams (the outliers) in each league. Kind of hope there would me tools out there to mess with play patterns and tendencies more than the actual result, I think that it would be actually useful plus such a resource paired with a decent analyst would net a way better prediction rate. But betting.jpg

Re: Show HN: Football Prediction API

#30

Post by jxub »

kefir_cultist wrote: post #29

Interesting but football is such a terrible sport to predict statistically outside of a few teams (the outliers) in each league. Kind of hope there would me tools out there to mess with play patterns and tendencies more than the actual result, I think that it would be actually useful plus such a resource paired with a decent analyst would net a way better prediction rate. But betting.jpg

>mess with play patterns and tendencies

Maybe you should get involved with Data Science, this field is all about playing with patterns (and hopefully finding a result), and even thinks like SVM's, random forests and genetic algorithms aren't really hard to grok and apply in that area.

There are some scientists involved with betting, but this field has really low profit margins IMHO. Personally, I view algorithmic trading as more interesting but YMMV.

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