THE DETERMINANTS OF SCORING IN NFL GAMES AND BEATING THE SPREAD

In this paper we attempt to predict the spread for National Football League (NFL) games for the 2008-2009 season. Separate regression equations are identified for predicting points for the home and away teams in individual games based on information known prior to the games. The difference in the predictions from the regression equations (updated weekly) serve as a prediction of the spread for NFL games and those results are used in a wagering experiment to determine if a successful betting strategy can be identified. All predictions in this paper are out- of-sample.