Category: Academy

There is nothing quite like a local derby in football. No matter which club he or she supports, the first thing a fan will check when the season’s fixtures are released is when their team is scheduled to face its local rival.

Top-level European football is a globalised affair these days, and it is increasingly common for classic derbies such as Roma vs Lazio, Manchester City vs Manchester United and Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid to feature very few players born anywhere near the city in which the match is taking place. Yet despite this, these games continue to matter more than any other, with players and coaches quickly getting on board with the supporters’ passion.

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Home advantage is a much explored phenomenon in the sporting world, and although there are conflicting views regarding the principal reason for its existence, few deny that it is real. It is particularly prominent in football, where playing on your own patch almost always increases your chances of victory in any given encounter.

In the 2018/19 English Premier League, the home side won 181 games and the away team triumphed in just 128 matches. Only one of the division’s 20 clubs collected more points in away matches than home ones.

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Irrationality in the market tends to benefit a small pool of investors, as seen in subprime mortgage bubbles. Believe it or not, there are similarities between this and the world of sports betting, where the prevention of information signalling can also cause market inefficiency.

When an asset is overvalued – that is, a higher value is attached to it than it is actually worth – the result is a bubble. In sports betting, a value bet is defined as one in which the probability of an outcome occurring is more likely than what the odds on it happening infer.

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There are countless people all across the globe who participate in sports betting. Many of these people do so for fun – it can add an element of entertainment to the process of following your favourite team, and it can also be an enjoyable activity to share among a group of friends. Others participate in sports betting because they want to earn a living from the endeavour; these people dedicate a large chunk of their time to research as they search for exploitable edges and keep up to date with important factors such as form and injuries.

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The favourite-longshot bias has a major effect on sports betting, but we tend to view the phenomenon through the prism of the bettor, rather than the bookmaker. This article serves as an attempt to readdress that balance and provide a fresh perspective on something every bettor should be aware of.

The favourite-long shot bias refers to when bettors tend to overvalue longshot selections and undervalue favourites. In simple terms, this is a form of bettor irrationality – and bookmakers, as they always do, react to it. In this case, they shorten their odds as a response to this common behaviour. And that, of course, is bad news for those looking to maximise their returns.

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Betting on sports is a complicated discipline. Even the most studious bettors must rely on significant portions of good fortune to be successful. The reason sport is so popular is because of the randomness at the heart of it, and that makes it difficult to make money from your predictions. There are, however, several things you can do to boost your chances of making a profit – and one of those is by employing data.

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There are countless people on the planet that make a living from real estate. You may know someone who works in that field, and if you do not you have probably seen television programmes about them. These individuals earn income by “flipping a house”, a concept which has similarities to sports betting.

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