Stats Chat

Team Ratings for Round 26

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 184 matches played, 117 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 63.6%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 26

Here are the predictions for Round 26. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Team Ratings for Round 3

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 14 matches played, 12 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 85.7%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 3

Here are the predictions for Round 3. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Team Ratings for Round 5

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 15 matches played, 9 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 60.0%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 5

Here are the predictions for Round 5. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

From the Northern Advocate

An unprecedented run of success in selling winning Lotto second division winning tickets has a Whangarei store on tenterhooks expecting an even bigger win soon.

Now, in one sense this is rubbish: lotto is drawn randomly. Previous wins can’t function as an outward and visible sign of a inward propensity to sell lucky tickets, because there is no such thing.

On the other hand, statistically, you would expect a store that has sold a lot of winning tickets in the past to sell a lot of winning tickets in the future. That’s because a store that has sold a lot of winning tickets has probably just sold a lot of tickets.

A ‘lucky’ lotto vendor will usually be one that’s made a lot of profits for Lotto New Zealand. As to whether its customers are lucky, well, you don’t tend to see stories like this set in Herne Bay or Thorndon.

• 538 has a new Twitter bot, censusAmericans, which tweets little descriptions of individuals from what I think must be the American Community Survey, though they describe it as the census.

• “Relaxing Privacy Vow, WhatsApp Will Share Some Data With Facebook” (NY Times). “Relaxing” is such a nice way to put that, but as various people have pointed out, this is what happens when companies build up volumes of data.

• A nice app for exploring how differences in some measurement (‘biomarker’) between groups of people (fail to) translate into reliable tests

• Our introductory statistics online course is starting up again: October 3

• The Spinoff and Figure.NZ are launching a “Chart of the Week” feature

• I’ve mentioned this before, but since it was mesmerising visitors to our Courses and Careers Day this weekend, Nathan Yau’s animation of what people do all day is worth linking again

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday September 2 2016.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of August 27 – September 2 2016 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

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Team Ratings for Round 25

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 176 matches played, 111 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 63.1%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 25

Here are the predictions for Round 25. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Team Ratings for Round 2

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 7 matches played, 5 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 71.4%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 2

Here are the predictions for Round 2. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

PredictGames4.html

Team Ratings for Round 4

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 11 matches played, 6 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 54.5%. Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 4

Here are the predictions for Round 4. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Yes, the book about the history of statistics has been written, in case you were wondering. A History of Statistics in New Zealand was published in 1999, with funding from the New Zealand Statistical Association and the Lotteries Commission of New Zealand. H S (Stan) Roberts edited the history, and wrote substantial sections. It’s now available for free download here – the usual caveats about attribution apply. And it opens by tracing the history and usage of the word statistics:

“Statistics”, like most words, is continually changing its meaning. In order to find the meaning of a word we tend to reach for a dictionary, but dictionaries do not so much “define” the meanings of words, but rather give their current usages, together with examples. Following are examples relating to statistics taken from the 1933 Oxford English Dictionary (13 Vols). Note that in each entry the date indicates the first usage found.

Statism: Subservience to political expediency in religious matters. 1609 – “Religion turned into Statisme will soon prooue Atheisme.”

Statist: One skilled in state affairs, one having political knowledge, power, or influence; a politician, statesman. Very common in 17th c. 1584 – “When he plais the Statist, wringing veri unlukkili some of Machiavels Avioxmes to serve his Purpos then indeed; then he tryumphes.”

Statistical: 1. Of, or pertaining to statistics, consisting or founded on collections of numerical facts, esp. with reference to economic, sanitary, and vital conditions. 1787 “The work (by Zimmerman) before us is properly statistical. It consists of different tables, containing a general comparative view of the forces, the government, the extent and population of the different kingdoms of Europe.” 2: Of a writer, etc: Dealing with statistics. 1787 – “Some respectable statistical writers.”

Statistician: One versed or engaged in collecting and tabulating statistics. 1825 – “The object of the statistician is to describe the condition of a particular country at a particular period.”

Statistics: In early use, that branch of political science, dealing with the collection, classification, and discussion of facts (especially of a numerical kind), bearing on the condition of a state or community. In recent use, the department of study that has for its object the collection and arrangement of numerical facts or data, whether relating to human affairs or to natural phenomena. 1787 – Zimmerman – “This science distinguished by the newly-coined name of Statistics, is become a favourite in Germany.”

Statistic: The earliest known occurrence of the word seems to be in the title of the satirical work “Microscopium Statisticum”, by Helenus Politanus, Frankfort (1672). Here the sense is prob. “pertaining to statists or to statecraft”.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1976) gives us two modern usages.

Statistics: 1. Numerical facts systematically collected 2: Science of collecting, classifying and using statistics. The first verse of a poem composed in 1799 by William Wordsworth, and entitled, “A Poet’s Epitaph”, successfully clarifies this difficult matter.

Art thou a Statist in the van
Of public conflicts trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man;
Then may’st thou think upon the dead.