Beating the House: Identifying Inefficiencies in Sports Betting Markets

Abstract: Inefficient markets allow investors to consistently outperform the market. To demonstrate that inefficiencies exist in sports betting markets, we created a betting algorithm that generates above market returns for the NFL, NBA, NCAAF, NCAAB, and WNBA betting markets. To formulate our betting strategy, we collected and examined a novel dataset of bets, and created a non-parametric win probability model to find positive expected value situations. As the United States Supreme Court has recently repealed the federal ban on sports betting, research on sports betting markets is increasingly relevant for the growing sports betting industry.