Forecasting outcomes of the World Cup 2006 in football: Performance and confidence of bettors and laypeople |
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| Authors: | Patric Andersson Daniel Memmert Eva Popowicz |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Center for Economic Psychology, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden;2. Institute of Sport and Sports Science, University of Heidelberg, Germany;1. Department of Economics, EconomiX – CNRS, Paris Nanterre University, 200, avenue de la République, 92001, Nanterre, France;2. Galatasaray University Economic Research Center (GIAM), 34349, Besiktas, Istanbul, Turkey;1. Risk and Information Management Research Group, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, UK;2. Forensic Mental Health Research Unit, Centre for Psychiatry, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary, University of London, London EC1M 6BQ, UK;3. Biological and Experimental Psychology Research Group, The School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, UK;1. University of San Francisco, Sport Management Program, 2130 Fulton Street, KA241, San Francisco, CA 94530, USA;2. Western Carolina University, College of Business, Cullowhee, NC 28723, USA;1. School of Mathematics, University of Manchester, UK;2. Centre for Sports Business, Salford Business School, University of Salford, UK |
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| Abstract: | ObjectivesMotivated by a paucity of research on sports forecasting, this paper examines how well individuals with varying degrees of relevant knowledge predict football (soccer) and how much confidence they have in their predictions.Design and procedureThree groups of participants (110 art students, 81 sports students, and 85 bettors) representing three levels of knowledge (poor, moderate, and expert) performed five forecasting tasks with relation to the outcome of the first round of the World Cup 2006. The tasks were assumed to reflect different degrees of complexity. About half of the participants obtained relevant information (world rankings). The participants stated their confidence in connection to conducting those tasks.ResultsWhereas the groups had roughly similar levels of performance in three tasks (i.e., predicting the teams qualifying for the second round as well as two types of match statistics), the knowledgeable and expert participants were better at predicting scores and percentage of ball possession in the matches than the naïve participants. Relatively few participants performed better than the simple rule that followed world rankings. Regardless of task complexity, the knowledgeable and expert participants were found to be significantly more confident about their forecasts than the naïve participants. Access to information had limited influence on forecasting performance and confidence.ConclusionThe present study shows that the forecasting performance of football experts and laypeople varies dependent on task. For easy tasks, they tend to predict equally well, partly because laypeople might use well-adapted heuristics. Once the prediction tasks become more difficult, the experts may take advantage of their domain-specific skills and produce forecasts that excel those of the laypeople. |
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