A1371
Title: Statistical models for handball
Authors: Dimitris Karlis - RC Athens University of Economics and Business (Greece) [presenting]
Marius Oetting - Bielefeld University (Germany)
Rouven Michels - Bielefeld University (Germany)
Abstract: Handball has received growing interest during the last years, including academic research on many different aspects of the sport. On the other hand, modelling the outcome of the game has attracted less interest mainly because of the additional challenges that occur. For example, it has been observed that the number of goals scored by each team is under-dispersed relative to a Poisson distribution and hence, new models are needed for this purpose. The aim is to present different models applicable to handball. To start with, models based on the Skellam distribution and its bivariate extensions can be the basis for avoiding the under-dispersion issue. Then, new models are developed for counting data with under-dispersion. Data from the German Bundesliga are used to show the potential of the new models.
