Forecasting with social media: Evidence from tweets on soccer matches

Brown, Alasdair, Rambaccussing, Dooruj, Reade, J. James and Rossi, Giambattista (2018) Forecasting with social media: Evidence from tweets on soccer matches. Economic Inquiry, 56 (3). pp. 1748-1763. ISSN 0095-2583

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Abstract

Social media is now used as a forecasting tool by a variety of firms and agencies. But how useful are such data in forecasting outcomes? Can social media add any information to that produced by a prediction/betting market? We source 13.8m posts from Twitter, and combine them with contemporaneous Betfair betting prices, to forecast the outcomes of English Premier League soccer matches as they unfold. Using a micro-blogging dictionary to analyse the content of Tweets, we find that the aggregate tone of Tweets contains significant information not in betting prices, particularly in the immediate aftermath of goals and red cards.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: forecasting,social media,prediction markets,wisdom of crowds,soccer
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Applied Econometrics And Finance
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 25 Jul 2017 05:09
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2022 02:55
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/64244
DOI: 10.1111/ecin.12506

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