Comparing the predictive power of different xG data providers

In the realm of sports betting, predictive analytics hinges on quality data, a challenge given the cost associated with many paid services. This article delves into the world of free xG (Expected Goals) data providers used by the BeatTheBookie services, assessing their predictive power for football betting, a critical aspect for enthusiasts who seek to enhance their strategies without breaking the bank.

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Inflated ML Poisson model to predict football matches

My last blog post “Poisson vs Reality” did change something in my head. I realized, that I not yet checked single parts of my model enough, whether they differ from reality and whether I could reduce this difference and improve the model performance. That’s why I started creating a new model approach for the new season and focus on the improvement of single steps during the model process. After the training of multiple models, I will test against the fair profit, which kind of adaptions improve a Poisson distribution model the most.

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Using xG & advanced stats to predict football matches

With the BeatTheBookieDataService in place it’s also time to provide some new models. This post will take a look at possible models using the team statistics provided for each match by understat.com. Therefor I will compare 3 of the most used machine learning algorithms. Beside this, it’s also time to test again some basics for predictiv modeling for football: “To differ between home/away performance or not to differ”? For my Poisson models I always differed between home and away performance. But is this also needed, when using ML algorithms?

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Why every data scientist should learn SQL

It’s been quite a long time since my last post for my blog. But that has been because of a specific reason: I participated at the 2nd DFB Hackathon, which consumed a huge amount of my freetime, which I normally spent creating some content for my blog. The Hackathon was again a great experience as all this deep data science stuff is still a challenge for me. But there’s again on big question on my side: Why are data scientist often just using Python (or R) and don’t know, how and when to use SQL.

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