Senior Capstone

Predicting the Outcome of Sports Competitions Using Poisson Distribution

Sports are either fast or slow, soccer and hockey fall into the fast category. When watching sports that are fast, people tend to be intrigued more and want to guess who is going to win, lose, or even tie. What if there was a way to make that guess into a proper guess? This paper will explore the Poisson Distribution Method and demonstrate the way its predictive model can be used to prove that it is the most accurate formula for predicting MLS (Major League Soccer) and NHL (National Hockey League) matches involves estimating the probability of different scorelines for each team based on their historical performance and other relevant factors. The key parts being taken into deliberation are the home and away form while including the attack and defense strengths and scoring patterns (goals scored and conceded) in past matches, of the 29 teams in the MLS, and the 32 teams in the NHL. The probabilities will be used to accurately show how the Poisson Distribution will be the most accurate compared to other formulas.