Review of Mathletics

Title:

Mathletics: How Gamblers, Managers, and Sports Enthusiasts Use Mathematics in Baseball, Basketball, and Football

Author:

Wayne L. Winston

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

Date:

2009

ISBN:

978-0-691-13913-5

Pages:

358

Price:

$29.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@jetcafe.org

November 29, 2009

Decades ago, Bill James founded the idea of sabrmetrics, that sophisticated mathematics can be employed to improve decision making within the game of baseball. In recent years, great strides have been made applying mathematics to other sports as well, including basketball and American football. Mathletics is a book that picks up where others have left off in analyzing baseball, basketball, and football.

Several other books have analyzed sports in a similar manner. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball by Tango, et. al., and Wages of Wins by Berri, et. al. analyze baseball and basketball respectively in the same spirit. What makes this book special to a gambling audience? Well, the fact that one of the four sections of chapters is devoted to sports betting issues makes this book especially relevant to those who read gambling book reviews.

The first three sections are reminiscent to those the Berri and Tango books mentioned in the previous paragraph. The author provides mathematical answers to questions such as, "What is the proper ratio of running vs. passing plays?" and "Would Ted Williams hit .400 in today's major leagues?" Some of the chapters in the non-gambling section provide useful information for gamblers, including addressing the issue of the Tim Donaghy basketball refereeing scandal, and rebutting the claim by a Wharton professor that about 5% of college basketball games are fixed.

Much as in the Berri and Tango books, the first three sections should be interesting to mathematically inclined sports fans and peripherally valuable to analytical sports bettors. In the fourth section, Winston turns it up a notch providing even more value to sports betting readers. Topics he tackles include whether NBA teams perform worse when playing back-to-back games, calculating the college basketball RPI (and what's wrong with it), and refereeing effects on basketball games. In no case does he provide the last word on the topic, but in all cases he advanced my understanding of each of these issues.

He spends two chapters talking about formulating mathematically rigorous power ratings. This is excellent information, much more thorough and more relevant than anything I've read in the few other books that discuss the topic. The precise algorithm Jeff Sagarin uses to calculate his ratings in The USA Today is a closely guarded secret, but I feel quite confident in saying that in this book what Winston has to say on the topic comes as close to what Sagarin is doing as has been published.

Of course, the book isn't perfect. While Winston displays a great deal of appreciation for sports, and as far as I can tell his mathematics is impeccable, there are a couple places where he plays a little fast and lose with some sports betting aspects. As one example, he discusses the issues of converting lines to money lines as well as betting teasers in the NFL without giving any consideration, as far as I could tell, to the fact that not all lines are created equal. It should be immediately obvious to even a casual sports fan that the value of the "3" in the NFL is much higher than is, say, the "8", and anyone glossing over the fact that converting the line to a money line in American football is a decidedly non-linear function is doing the reader a grave disservice.

Despite a few minor shortcomings, I believe that Mathletics is a very strong book that I recommend to any analytical sports bettor, or even any analytical sports enthusiast. The calculations provided in the book are not always trivial, but those without a truly sophisticated understanding of mathematics should still be able to follow the logic and the vast majority of what goes on in this book. In fact, for my own selfish interests, I would have preferred more math, but I'm sure most of the book's audience (not to mention the publisher) is happy making the book more broadly accessible. While Mathletics requires more effort of the reader than your average novel, it's not a graduate mathematics text. People who understand basic probability and algebra have no reason to fear this book.

Overall, Winston succeeds admirably in his goals for Mathletics. The book tackles interesting questions, provides clear explanations, and, I believe, is generally on the right side of the topics he addresses. This book does not provide the last word in anything, and there is the very occasional topic where I think he does the reader a disservice in playing a little fast with his analysis. However, there's a lot of real top-notch thought here that both pushes the frontiers of sports analysis and provides an outstanding reference to mathematically inclined sports bettors. It's good stuff, and one of the more useful sources for interesting information on sports betting that I've read.

Capsule:

Mathletics is another in a line of books that provide mathematical analysis of sports issues. The hook here is that a full quarter of the book is devoted to topics related to sports wagering. The book isn't perfect, but it both provides a lot of very valuable and interesting information and is entertaining. Those who struggled with junior high algebra will probably be frightened off by the math in the book, but it doesn't require a college degree to understand what the author is saying. I found this book to be useful and interesting, and I think that it covers some issues better than any other source in print. I recommend it to analytical sports fans or sports bettors.