This book is a collection of applications of analytic techniques to a number of popular sports including baseball, basketball, hockey, Jai Alai, NFL football and horseracing. We focus on both the statistics of the sporting events and betting strategies on the events. The subject is fascinating as there are many twists and subtle complicated decisions.Sports analytics applies mathematical and statistical methods to important questions in the structure and performance of sporting activities using the same basic methods and approaches as data analysts in other disciplines.Sports games and events are a fruitful area for study and to evaluate betting strategies as there is extensive data and mean reversion. With prices changing continuously, risk arbitrage bets can be made. Moreover, little errors, like a penalty to a player or an error in a call by a referee, can change the score of a game and corresponding betting prices. The collection and analysis of in-game data can inform players, coaches and staff on effective decision making during sporting events.Novel features of the book include: an analysis of who were the greatest baseball batters; analyses of the players most important to team success (and they are not necessarily the best players) in basketball, NFL football and hockey; a tutorial on risk arbitrage and its applications to NFL football and NBA basketball; a discussion of many ad hoc decision rules by coaches and players and what was really optimal; in the racing section we discuss breeding, the analysis of various bets like the Rainbow and ordinary Pick 6, a discussion and betting on the most important races and a visit to the Breeders' Cup with Ed Thorp to demonstrate the place and show system in action.

This book is a collection of applications of analytic techniques to a number of popular sports including baseball, basketball, hockey, Jai Alai, NFL football and horseracing. We focus on both the statistics of the sporting events and betting strategies on the events. The subject is fascinating as there are many twists and subtle complicated decisions.Sports analytics applies mathematical and statistical methods to important questions in the structure and performance of sporting activities using the same basic methods and approaches as data analysts in other disciplines.Sports games and events are a fruitful area for study and to evaluate betting strategies as there is extensive data and mean reversion. With prices changing continuously, risk arbitrage bets can be made. Moreover, little errors, like a penalty to a player or an error in a call by a referee, can change the score of a game and corresponding betting prices. The collection and analysis of in-game data can inform players, coaches and staff on effective decision making during sporting events.Novel features of the book include: an analysis of who were the greatest baseball batters; analyses of the players most important to team success (and they are not necessarily the best players) in basketball, NFL football and hockey; a tutorial on risk arbitrage and its applications to NFL football and NBA basketball; a discussion of many ad hoc decision rules by coaches and players and what was really optimal; in the racing section we discuss breeding, the analysis of various bets like the Rainbow and ordinary Pick 6, a discussion and betting on the most important races and a visit to the Breeders' Cup with Ed Thorp to demonstrate the place and show system in action.

This book consists of invaluable introductions, tutorials and problems which are helpful for teaching purposes and have a very broad appeal and usage. The problems cover many aspects of static and dynamic portfolio theory as well as other important subjects such as arbitrage and asset pricing, utility theory, stochastic dominance, risk aversion and static portfolio theory, risk measures, dynamic portfolio theory and asset allocation. This material could be used with important books that cover these topics including MacLean-Ziemba's The Handbook of the Fundamentals of Financial Decision Making, and Ziemba-Vickson's Stochastic Optimization Models in Finance.

This guidebook presents historical and new material to assist the reader to understand NFL game strategies and provides a winning betting strategy. The authors, William Ziemba and Leonard MacLean are professors, traders, financial analysts and sports enthusiasts. They covered ideas like the game's strategies, and shared their wealth of personal experience analyzing the regular season, the playoffs and the Super Bowls in the years 2010-2017. The results of their actual betting for the 2009-10 to the 2017-18 seasons are provided. The authors concluded the book with a forecast for the 2018-2019 season. They determine the players most valuable to win the games, discuss crucial decisions and provide prediction methodology. The authors concluded with a forecast of the top teams, players and odds to win the 53rd Super Bowl.

This guidebook presents historical and new material to assist the reader to understand NFL game strategies and provides a winning betting strategy. The authors, William Ziemba and Leonard MacLean are professors, traders, financial analysts and sports enthusiasts. They covered ideas like the game's strategies, and shared their wealth of personal experience analyzing the regular season, the playoffs and the Super Bowls in the years 2010-2017. The results of their actual betting for the 2009-10 to the 2017-18 seasons are provided. The authors concluded the book with a forecast for the 2018-2019 season. They determine the players most valuable to win the games, discuss crucial decisions and provide prediction methodology. The authors concluded with a forecast of the top teams, players and odds to win the 53rd Super Bowl.

This book consists of invaluable introductions, tutorials and problems which are helpful for teaching purposes and have a very broad appeal and usage. The problems cover many aspects of static and dynamic portfolio theory as well as other important subjects such as arbitrage and asset pricing, utility theory, stochastic dominance, risk aversion and static portfolio theory, risk measures, dynamic portfolio theory and asset allocation. This material could be used with important books that cover these topics including MacLean-Ziemba's The Handbook of the Fundamentals of Financial Decision Making, and Ziemba-Vickson's Stochastic Optimization Models in Finance.

This volume provides the definitive treatment of fortune's formula or the Kelly capital growth criterion as it is often called. The strategy is to maximize long run wealth of the investor by maximizing the period by period expected utility of wealth with a logarithmic utility function. Mathematical theorems show that only the log utility function maximizes asymptotic long run wealth and minimizes the expected time to arbitrary large goals. In general, the strategy is risky in the short term but as the number of bets increase, the Kelly bettor's wealth tends to be much larger than those with essentially different strategies. So most of the time, the Kelly bettor will have much more wealth than these other bettors but the Kelly strategy can lead to considerable losses a small percent of the time. There are ways to reduce this risk at the cost of lower expected final wealth using fractional Kelly strategies that blend the Kelly suggested wager with cash. The various classic reprinted papers and the new ones written specifically for this volume cover various aspects of the theory and practice of dynamic investing. Good and bad properties are discussed, as are fixed-mix and volatility induced growth strategies. The relationships with utility theory and the use of these ideas by great investors are featured.

This volume provides the definitive treatment of fortune's formula or the Kelly capital growth criterion as it is often called. The strategy is to maximize long run wealth of the investor by maximizing the period by period expected utility of wealth with a logarithmic utility function. Mathematical theorems show that only the log utility function maximizes asymptotic long run wealth and minimizes the expected time to arbitrary large goals. In general, the strategy is risky in the short term but as the number of bets increase, the Kelly bettor's wealth tends to be much larger than those with essentially different strategies. So most of the time, the Kelly bettor will have much more wealth than these other bettors but the Kelly strategy can lead to considerable losses a small percent of the time. There are ways to reduce this risk at the cost of lower expected final wealth using fractional Kelly strategies that blend the Kelly suggested wager with cash. The various classic reprinted papers and the new ones written specifically for this volume cover various aspects of the theory and practice of dynamic investing. Good and bad properties are discussed, as are fixed-mix and volatility induced growth strategies. The relationships with utility theory and the use of these ideas by great investors are featured.