Forecasting Super Bowl Odds
Research Question
Are NFL Super Bowl betting markets informationally efficient, and can time-series models exploit predictable structure in futures odds to outperform market-implied probabilities?
Data
- Historical Super Bowl futures odds converted to implied probabilities
- Weekly panel of odds across all 32 teams over multiple NFL seasons
- Overround-adjusted probabilities to correct for bookmaker margin
Method
- ARIMA and LSTM models fit to weekly implied probability series
- Forecast evaluation using Brier scores and log-loss across forecast horizons
- Statistical tests for weak-form market efficiency (autocorrelation, variance ratio)
- Model forecasts benchmarked against naive and market-implied baselines
Key Findings
- Markets rapidly incorporate new information, consistent with near-efficiency
- Short-horizon model forecasts outperform long-horizon predictions
- Detectable early-season autocorrelation suggests limited, transient inefficiency