Beating the House With Big Data: Can Analytics Give Sports Bettors an Edge?

Veteran sports bettors who were placing wagers before the internet came along will likely remember having access to a variety of key stats. For instance, baseball bettors could open their morning newspapers and glean information like the ERAs, win/loss records, batting averages, and a few other basic stats. If you were really serious, then you might have subscribed to one of those weekly or monthly betting primers that offered more in-depth stats.

While these statistics were helpful, they were quite limited. That changed with the introduction of the internet. It took some time, but sports bettors started having access to a vastly larger pool of information and statistics. So, does the availability of big data give punters an edge when they wager at sports betting verticals at online casinos that accept bank transfer?

Bettors Can Make More Accurate Predictions if…

There is no doubt that knowing and understanding advanced stats like BABIP, P/PA, wRAA, and ISO can help baseball bettors make more informed and accurate predictions. It is similar to how stats like Corsi, GSAx, and GF/60 help hockey bettors or how modern NFL bettors refer to TotalQBR, DVOA, and WPA.

While having all of this information at your fingertips is a very good thing, you have to know how to use it. Those who make sense of the numbers and effectively incorporate them into their betting formulas can make more accurate predictions. On the flip side, haphazardly plugging random stats and figures into a formula could easily lead to disaster.

Oddsmakers Have Access to Big Data Too

Let’s say that you have all of the fancy stats in the world available in real-time. You have also come up with a promising betting model that instantly crunches those complex stats and spits out predictions. This would be a sports bettor’s fantasy come true.

The thing is, you have to realize that the oddsmakers also have access to big data. Not only that, but they certainly have a thorough understanding of how to use that information. This is why you see far fewer weak lines and exploitable odds these days. Even though online sportsbooks post thousands of propositions every day, the odds are almost always ultra-sharp.

It is true that savvy bettors who make best use of big data gain an advantage in terms of their predictions. Just remember that the bookmakers have the same information and more. They also build vig into their odds. Thus, any perceived edge is smaller than you may think.

All Sports are Susceptible to Unforeseen Random Events

AI and machine learning have become so advanced that they have revolutionized how sports are played. For instance, a coach can feed video clips of players into a computer to find specific strengths and weaknesses. A coach can also use this type of technology to assign optimum offensive and defensive strategies in any situation. One could argue that artificial intelligence will one day make human coaches obsolete.

Even though big data and AI can make more accurate predictions, they still can’t anticipate those unpredictable X-factors that so often influence the outcome of a match. Mark Sanchez’s butt fumble, the homerun off of Jose Canseco’s head, and Jim Marshall’s wrong-way run into his own endzone are some of the more famous examples of the unpredictable randomness of sports. You get whacky bounces, bad calls, injuries, and all sorts of other surprises like those Stop Oil protesters storming the field.

Be Careful What You Wish For

All sports bettors dream of having that Holy Grail of betting formulas. It would even be better than having that sports almanac from Back to the Future. However, what would happen in a world where the outcome of any competition could be predicted with 100% accuracy? That includes foreseeing all of the random events mentioned above. Well, it’s safe to say that being a sports fan would become rather boring.

With bettors and bookies having near-equal access to such powerful weapons as big data and AI, we could eventually be looking at a case of mutually assured destruction. After all, if punters started hitting 100% of their sports bets, then the sports betting industry would likely crumble and cease to exist. That would be an ironic twist.