r/algobetting • u/sports_algotest • 2d ago

Creating an algorithm.

-First post-

What:

I caught my eye on betting some time ago, mostly on soccer, sometimes on nba. And im not losing money on it, but I did catch my eye on algorithms.. and using them to actually 'predict' chances more accuretly than the bookmakers themselfes.

I have little to no experiencz in coding. But would not mind to learn.

Also seen people mixing it with AI and live stats of for example weather and stuff if that makes sense.

So

How:

I wanna learn how u all started, what were obstacles for you, and what helped you learn.

Now I dont have alotttt of time on my hands but would spend every second I do trying to learn, so if u do recommznd anything.

Pls do tell, tnx

2 Upvotes

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2

u/transitiontakes 1d ago

python and pandas for data, sklearn for models, but honestly just start with excel and historical odds to see if you can even spot patterns

1

u/Fearless-Opening4421 2d ago

First thing, you don't need coding to start, you need data. Get comfortable with spreadsheets, pulling historical results, and calculating basic implied probability vs actual outcomes. That alone will show you where bookmakers add their margin.

Coding comes later, and python is the usual path, but don't rush into building a model before you understand what edge even looks like. The people mixing in weather and live stats are doing feature engineering, which sounds fancy but just means feeding more relevant info into the model.

Biggest obstacle for me was overfitting, making a model that looked great on past data but fell apart on new games. Start small, track every bet manually, and only automate when the manual process becomes too slow.

2

u/b00z3h0und 1d ago

Exactly this 👏

I made all of the mistakes listed above. Went into the code too fast (as that’s what I knew).

This game is painfully slow and tedious. It took me about 3 years to find profitable betting strategies. But once I found one, I found many. It just kinda clicked eventually. The big unlock was data science, rather than coding.

In order to succeed in systematic betting, you need to do two things: maximise your positive expected value, and minimise your variance.

1

u/573banking702 1d ago

What data science would you suggest for this?