They may look like basketball players, but they鈥檙e really a random number generator (Image: Layne Murdoch Jr./NBAE via Getty Images)
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IT鈥橲 quite the dilemma. Your team is winning with 10 minutes left in the game. You鈥檙e glued to the TV, but really should get back to work. Do you switch off, confident that the game is secure, or stay tuned just in case it isn鈥檛?
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Now there鈥檚 a way to decide. of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his colleagues analysed more than a million encounters in basketball, hockey and American football. They found that much of the dynamics of these competitive team sports can be accurately captured by a simple model in which the score difference randomly moves up or down over time.
鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of remarkable,鈥� said Clauset. 鈥淭he emergent behaviour of these highly trained athletes in a well-regulated environment is basically equivalent to a random number generator.鈥�
The researchers used their model to work out the probability that a lead would be 鈥渟afe鈥� at any given time. For an NBA basketball game lasting 48 minutes, they calculated that a team with a lead of 18 points halfway through the match will win 90 per cent of the time. At other times, you can work out the lead that a team needs to be 90 per cent safe in a basketball game by multiplying the square root of the remaining seconds by 0.4602.
This is stunningly accurate, says Clauset, considering the model knows almost nothing about the rules of the game (Physical Review E, ).
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淲inning formula tells you when the game is in the bag鈥�