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Optimal Strategies for Sports Betting Pools

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri 63103
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri 63103
bryan{at}slu.edu
letscher{at}slu.edu

Every fall, millions of Americans enter betting pools to pick winners of the weekly NFL football games. In the spring, NCAA tournament basketball pools are even more popular. In both cases, teams that are popularly perceived as "favorites" gain a disproportionate share of entries. In large pools there can be a significant advantage to picking upsets that differentiate your picks from the crowd.

In this paper, we present a model of betting pools that incorporates pool participant behavior. We use the model to derive strategies that maximize the expected return on a bet in both football pools and tournament-style pools. These strategies significantly outperform strategies based on maximizing score or number of correct picks—often by orders of magnitude.

Subject classifications: games/group decisions; gambling.
History: Received March 2006; revision received September 2006; accepted October 2006.