SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
SBC’s Andy McCarron caught up with BSports (STATS) President Bill Squadron to discuss the development of their European football insight/data tool Match Analysis. Sqaudron discusses how BSports are aiming to bring relevant data and analysis to European sports betting enthusiasts, in order to create a real impact in the market
BSports (STATS) takes the technology developed by Bloomberg, the leading global provider in financial data and analytics, and applies it to the vast data analysis opportunities in sports. BSports recently launched a consumer product for football which provides match forecasts & analytic’s for matches in Europe’s top five leagues, with the aim of helping bettors beat bookies.
___________________
SBC: How long does it take to develop a match analysis?
Bill: The BSports division of STATS offers a range of football products from Match Preview Packs and the Power 50 performance Index through to Match Analysis, a purely objective, data-driven match forecasting tool which helps bettors ‘beat the bookie’.
Match Analysis itself was born two years ago and its underlying algorithm continues to be refined with each season and every match. The tool was developed by BSports’ analysts and engineers who took years of historical data into account to develop a flexible and versatile algorithm.
While we were able to generate a positive return for our users in the initial seasons, we continue to refine and develop models in order to get more accurate results, and importantly deliver a greater return for fans and bettors using the tool.
SBC: What statistics are incorporated into the analysis, over what time period, and how were these decisions made?
Bill: Match Analysis takes hundreds of historic and live datapoints to deliver its projections. Recent matches will also affect a teams projections for the next game. These algorithms were developed through regressional analysis and testing which, through the research of our statisticians, provide the most accurate match-by-match projections.
SBC: How do you test the accuracy of the analysis after the event?
Bill: There are many ways to analyse the accuracy of our Match Analysis tool and we cover as many as possible so that we can continually refine and perfect the model.
To demonstrate the accuracy of Match Analysis projections, we continually run simulations to see how our numbers would perform in a true betting environment – using bookmaker numbers as the benchmark. In our debut season (2012) Match Analysis resulted in a total 5.4% ROI for the season. Last season, Match Analysis would have delivered 14.2% ROI for bettors using the tool for Europe’s top three leagues (EPL, Bundesliga and La Liga). Over the course of the World Cup, Match Analysis odds would have produced a 35.5% ROI (82.5% ROI in the group stages). This season, Match Analysis is delivering a total of 4.5% ROI across Europe’s top five leagues and the Champions League.
On a match by match basis, Match Analysis correctly forecast the outcome of 44 out of 64 matches at the World Cup (69%) and this season has correctly forecast 53.4% of matches in the Premier League this season. 67.6% of Match Analysis Over/Under projections in the Premier League have been correct this season.
SBC: How can bookmakers use the match analysis to make more money?
Bill: Betting stimulant – offer it as a form of customer acquisition, customer retention or to their VIP members as a betting stimulant. Providing bettors with more information to feel more confident when placing bets.
API to integrate into their site – BSports can deliver the underlying numbers via API to feed online tools of features for the bookmakers. Align back-end – BSports can provide bookmakers with the API to align their own odds/lines.
SBC: What sports do you provide this analysis for? Any plans for expansion into other divisions/sports?
Bill: Currently provide only the Match Analysis tool for soccer, however our projections in NFL, MLB and NBA have won numerous awards, most recently at the Fantasy Sports Trade Association this month (January 2015) where we won 1st place in NFL season long projections, 1st place in MLB season long projections and 2nd place in NFL weekly projections. We continually look for opportunities to develop similar products across other sports.
__________________
Bill Sqaudron – BSports – President
