Name Change

Ron Metta

When I started this blog a year and a half ago, I began with a fairly narrow scope: analysis and exploration of sports betting markets. Although my interests were broader than just the money bet on the game, my feeling at the time was that most of the interesting work in fundamental sports data analysis had already been done, and done much better than I could have hoped to do on my own. And while that is still largely the case, for better or worse, my focus on this blog has expanded beyond just "following the money".

So, as part of this mission creep, I've decided to rename this site. For one, I was looking for a name less, um, bureaucratic than Betting Market Analytics. And with fewer letters (so many letters in that url, especially with the blogspot.com). Picking a website name in 2013 must be akin to picking out a personalized license plate: all the good ones are taken, forcing you into immediate compromise and uncomfortable questions ("Does anybody ever actually visit a .co domain?", "Can I use a 3 for an E?","What if I add a silent K?", etc.). While the pickings were slim, I was able to snag a domain name I was happy with: www.inpredictable.com.

That's not a word

True, inpredictable is not a word, but it's close enough. Inpredictable, of course, is a mangling of a real word: unpredictable. And if I've learned anything over my career in crunching numbers and making predictions, it's that numbers and analysis can make you smarter, but you're still going to be pretty dumb. The good news is, most everybody else is just as dumb (fans, pundits, former players, even your bookie). After all, "It's tough making predictions, especially about the future".

The "in" in "inpredictable" can refer to in-game win probabilities, a recent obsession of mine, and one I intend to be a core feature of this site (I've already built models for the NBA and tennis, and made some furtive stabs at an NFL model).

Team Rankings and Other Features

My betting market team rankings I produce for various sports (NFL, NCAAF, NCAAB, NBA, and MLB) will continue to be shared here. The same goes for various other features, like the Turnover Index. I also plan on some upgrades to the format and layout of the site that should be rolling out soon.

All links referring to bettingmarketanalytics pages will automatically redirect to inpredictable, but it's probably a good idea to update your bookmarks.

At its core, this will remain a site devoted to analysis and understanding of the sporting (and sometimes betting) world. Hope you enjoy.