Forecasting football outcomes to invest in betting markets

• Autor(a) principal: Côrte-Real, João Maria Telles Moniz
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/17892
• topic: Betting markets; Football; Forecasting; Sports betting; Marketing desportivo; Futebol; Mercados; Trabalho de projeto

Our main objective was to develop a method which can be used to obtain long-term returns on football bets. The forecasting of the matches was made using quantitative (including a Poisson regression model) and qualitative (of subjective interpretation) information. This approach was named value strategy, being able to generate a yield rate of 19,88%, and to predict 8 out of 11 outcomes. However, the number of bets made is too small to conclude that this strategy is capable of providing consistent earnings, in the long-run. The accuracy strategy consisted in betting on favourites who played at home, and produced returns of 0,39%, not compensating for the risks assumed. If this strategy was able to create revenues, it could indicate the presence of biases in the Portuguese betting markets, and consequently, that these were semi-strong efficient. In practice, the accuracy strategy broke even, therefore not suggesting that the Portuguese markets’ odds were biased. However, if we did the same bets through Pinnacle (UK-based bookmaker), the returns would be of 6,62%, hence indicating the existence of biases and semi-strong efficiency. Surprisingly, if one removes the overround, Portuguese bookmakers would have offered better odds for the home wins than Pinnacle. This demonstrates the need of reviewing the Portuguese online gambling legal framework, which is the main reason for the poor competitiveness of Portuguese betting markets. As far as our research went, we could not find any studies about these markets, hence we consider that our work adds an important contribution to the existing literature.