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What Does Data Mining Mean In Regards to Sports Betting and Wagering?

by Doc's Sports - 10/11/2014

miner

This may be the most scientific part of the sports betting industry and most bettors don’t know that this is a thing even that exists. Most bettors continuously look forward and only bet on the upcoming games with very little regard with any prior happenings. The smart bettors know that looking at past games can prove profitable forfuture betting opportunities. This is called “data mining” and while it may not be an easy process, it is important to do every now and then.

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What Does Data Mining Mean?

When you hear someone using the term “data mining” they are referring to a particular process that sorts through large volumes of data in order to pinpoint trends for future betting scenarios that can turn a profit. To simplify this, a trend is something that has happened over and over again in the past and could very well happen again in the future.

If you have a knack for picking up on these kinds of things, finding two occurrences that somewhat correlate would only help you turn a profit as a bettor. For example, if you are “data mining” and you see that a particular team very rarely wins the game with a certain pitcher on the mound on a Tuesday, you would look at every single Tuesday and bet against that team if that pitcher was making the start.  “Data mining” also helps keep the memory sharp, since you are looking into the archives and remembering all these occurrences, while preparing yourself for future betting opportunities.

How does Data Mining Help Bettors?

By combing through large volumes of data and statistics, data mining helps bettors to understand individual teams and their trends. These trends could include things like scoring points – both at home and on the road, how they fare off back-to-back games and against certain teams, how they fare coming off a bye (football) or an off day (baseball), daily statistics like day/night game records and the list goes on and on. This form of research is beneficial to bettors because it allows them to identify any strong/weak trends a team may have and either play on or against that specific trend in the future. However, data mining can only lead to serious profit if done correctly and with sufficient enough data to back up a certain trend. If done incorrectly, it could lead you down the wrong path and your bankroll will take a massive hit.

The Problem with Relying Heavily on Data Mining

The problem with “data mining” is that very few people do it well. Wise guys and big betting syndicates are usually successful ones while square bettors think they can, but in reality, can’t data mine effectively. The biggest mistake squares make while data mining is that they do selective testing. When combing through the data, they are quick to dismiss a game and convince themselves that they wouldn’t have wagered on that game in that particular situation. Hindsight is 20/20- which means that it’s almost impossible to be sure you could have held off on betting that situation. If this is done on more than one occasion it defeats the purpose of combing through hundreds of stats and trends to find profitable situations in the future.

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