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World cup predictor

A

AlexH

New Member
I'm not a football fan but I do like mucking about with stats. Our company has a competition based on the world cup, predict the outcome of matches winner etc and you win the pot basically. I have submitted a 'random' answer based on usign =randbetween(0,4) for goals as a guess that its not likely to score more than 4 in a match and (0,5) for penalties where there is a draw.


It struck me that all people are doing is basing their judgement on the ranking of the team against past form. i.e the world cup rankings. It also struck me that a monte carlo anlaysis based on the ranking of two sides could be used to predict the outcome and possibly the score (way over my head!)


How would I manage to adapt an existing sheet that has the group matches and knock out stages to fit in this prediction. I'd love to win the competion based on excel only...he he
 
AlexH

I'd be inclined to use a combination of some statistics and some randomness.

The problem is getting a real balance between the two, which probably could be done by analysing past upsets.


However if prediction was that easy we'd all be millionaires from betting on the Horses, Dogs, Lotto etc


Good Luck !
 
I only need to beat the smug ones in the office. I just wanted to prove that you are just as likely to get it right from the off by making a simple model
 
I once simulated monopoly games to understand how it works and why some cells get more visitors than others.


http://chandoo.org/wp/2007/02/25/is-monopoly-fair/


You can use similar approach for this too. You can probably establish the hypothesis that random prediction is as good as prediction based on past performance and analysis.


But in my experience, simulating games is very challenging and often useless. Most games are random by nature but once you understand it, they exhibit strong play strategy, talent and skill. Football more so.


Anyways, have fun exploring this problem.. let us know if you make the predictor :)
 
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