Data Mining for the NFL Picks Beats the Casino
By John Schneider
Picking NFL football games should be easy, right? All you have to do is pick the winning team (verses the spread) and put your hard earned money on it. After the fact it is pretty easy to say “I knew the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers were going to win by more than 3 points… who didn’t know that?!?!? Yet the Las Vegas casinos still have money to build more hotels. The truth is that consistently picking correct bets on NFL game is an extremely difficult thing to do. People have been trying to master this for years, and will continue to do so.Go to www.FBminer.com
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If only there was a computer program that could take in the thousands of bits of variable information and spit out the correct side of the wager? Many very smart people have tried to come up with the solution, but up until now I know of no one who has been successful. Recently FirstLightSports reviewed a product called FBMiner (www.fbminer.com) created by Seagull Data Mining that seems to have figured it out. To say we were impressed is an understatement. During the 2010 football season they had a documented 74% success rate with their 10 star games (20 wins with 7 loses); 60% success rate with their 7 star games. So far up to the beginning of November 2011 they continue to produce impressive results for the season with 14 wins & 4 losses (78%) for their top picks and 40 wins & 26 losses (61%) for their overall picks.
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FBMiner predicts the outcomes of NFL games using their own proprietary statistical modeling techniques. Seagull Data Mining, the creators of the FBMiner product, takes advanced data mining technologies that have been used by large corporations, banks, and stock brokerages, and unleashes it on NFL football forecasting. They run a proprietary computer program called a genetic neural network, which generates a computer model to predict the results of the upcoming NFL games.
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Before anyone (or any program) can provide realistic predictions you need to digest and understand the past. That is exactly what FBMiner is doing during the first 3 weeks of the NFL season. This service does not start providing picks until week 4 of the season; after they have digested the millions of data elements generated during the games at the start of the season.
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The website for FBMiner, www.FBMiner.com, has all the details on how the statistical modeling program works and how it can be applied to your NFL wager strategy. While reviewing the information listed you will clearly see their historical performance (both the good and the bad) so you know exactly what you are getting with their service. What a fresh approach compared to the other picking sites that don’t give you their full complete record for the year (anyone who says they are near perfect would not be selling picks – they would be living the high life off of their winnings).
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After spending time reviewing and understanding the FBMiner product it is clear that the advantage switches from the casino to the player making the wagers. As you can see from the history provided on the website, the data model statistically tests positive over time. Clearly the model will not give you the correct outcome every time, but it really changes the odds from in favor of the casino to the player.
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FBMiner is a tool that greatly helps with the process of predicting the unpredictable. You can look through these results and decide for yourself just how valuable a tool FBMiner will be for you in beating the NFL spreads.
Published Winter 2010