Dear All, The Monash University School of Computer Science and Software Engineering's probabilistic football prediction competition dates back to 1995 and is free for all to enter, with entrants entering not just which team they think will win a given Australian Football League (AFL) game, but also a probability that they assign to that event.
This competition received some quite a lot of http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~footy/media.shtml newspaper, radio and television media coverage. This WWW-based probabilistic footy-tipping competition is at www.csse.monash.edu.au/~footy . It is free for all to enter, and there is at least Aus$512 in prizes to be shared amongst the top 10 Australian secondary student tipsters in the probabilistic competition. The scoring system for the probabilistic competition is 1 + log_2(p) if you're right 1 + log_2(1-p) if you're wrong. So, if you just go 50% all year, then you would end up with a score of 0.00 for each game and a total of 0. The optimal (expected) long-term strategy is to tip the true probability of the outcome of the game. If you're inexperienced at probabilistic prediction, then it's probably a very good idea to practice by tipping conservatively in the first few rounds. People who join the competition late join with a score of 0.00, as though they had tipped 50%-50% on every game up to that point. With usually more than half the field having a negative score, this is not such a great disadvantage. More details on the scoring system for the probabilistic competition and information is given at http://www.cs.monash.edu.au/~footy/about.shtml . Details on two other competitions (Normal and Gaussian) are also given there. Tips can be entered in advance. As long as the AFL has supplied the schedule for the game, we will put a template up on the WWW so that you can enter your probabilistic tips in advance. The cut-off for entering tips is approximately 1/2 an hour before the scheduled bounce of the ball - but see the WWW page for any clarification. Teachers are not only encouraged to encourage students to enter, teachers are encouraged to enter themselves. For less advanced students, the WWW site permits graphical plots of the progress of various tipsters. For more advanced students - of calculus, it is an interesting result to derive that, given our logarithmic scoring system, if one knew the _true_ probability, then the optimal long-term strategy would be to tip with the _true_ probability. If you want to practise your tips, two useful things to do are to look at the scoring system: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~footy/about.shtml#info and to monitor the progress of tippers from previous years: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~footy/past/2001 and current tippers. Please, all, feel free to enter, particularly primary and secondary students. Where you deem it appropriate, please also feel at liberty to tell keen friends. Yours faithfully. - David Dowe. Dr David Dowe, Competition organiser, School of Computer Science and Software Eng., Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia Fax:+61 3 9905-5146 http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~dld/ http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~footy/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
