Paul Bessire, who built the Predictalator, is one of the foremost authorities on mathematically modeling and analyzing all sports. For more than nine years since earning his Master's degree in Quantitative Analysis (with a focus on Finance and Sports), he has turned what was his longtime hobby of predicting and writing about sports outcomes into his full-time profession.
Over that time period, Paul has had great success, accurately choosing the winner of: seven of the last ten Super Bowls (nine of ten against-the-spread); six of the last nine World Series, including the Yankees' 2009 win in exactly six and the 2006 Cardinals win in exactly five; and seven of the last nine NCAA Tournament champions (as of Selection Sunday). Paul has maintained that success, accurately predicting all 20 of 23 NFL playoff games since the site's launch against-the-spread, hitting more than 60% against-the-spread with football Locks of the Week, over 60% ATS with Paul's Picks in the NFL, college football and the NCAA Tournament, over 57% with "normal" or better picks all-time in the NFL, NBA and MLB combined and over 53% with all playable picks.
For the 2009 NFL season, Paul also bested over 100 prognosticators in the inaugural Richard Gardner Pro Football Pick'em (against the spread) contest.
Previous to starting PredictionMachine.com, Paul served as the Product Manager of Quantitative Analysis and Content for FoxSports Interactive. There, Paul was responsible for the math behind the historical simulation sports games at WhatIfSports.com as well as any FoxSports.com, Scout.com or WhatIfSports.com articles that were created from that technology. In that role, Paul wrote over 1,000 articles and conducted more than 500 radio interviews (numbers that have both more than doubled in one year as General Manager of PredictionMachine.com). He has also collaborated on countless other print, online and TV features with many of the most recognized members of the sports media (more info here), some sports leagues and teams and many of the best minds in the sports analysis business.
PredictionMachine.com is Paul Bessire's latest endeavor, which features the Predictalator – the most in-depth, state-of-the-art sports prediction software ever created.
Before using statistics to forecast game outcomes professionally, Paul was always working on ways to apply the financial modeling and predictive methods he learned while graduating in Finance and Quantitative Analysis as an undergraduate student. A Master's degree in Quantitative Analysis, where Paul penned the thesis, Measuring Individual and Team Effectiveness in the NBA Through Multivariate Regression, led Paul away from the world of finance, to the interesting and ever-evolving world of sports analysis, where past performance can be more indicative of future outcomes and talking about the job is a lot more fun. Many of the same principles with which Paul excelled in school related to effective business and financial strategies have even stronger applications to sports.
Paul's expertise covers just about every major professional and collegiate US sport including the NFL, college football, college basketball, MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA and poker (probably in that order). While he could rely on the numbers and do this job without ever watching a game, (much to the joy of his wife,) he watches and follows everything. With that expertise and knowledge also comes fantasy sports success, where Paul has also competed and advised as a fantasy "expert" in fantasy football, baseball and basketball as well as pick'em contests in every sport.
A diehard Green Bay Packers and Wisconsin Badgers fan from birth, Paul considers himself a "Cheesehead," but never lets his personal preferences influence the predictions he endorses (the Predictalator also helps since it removes any bias).
In 2009, Paul was the featured speaker at the annual "Symposium on Statistics and Operations Research in Sports" that was held in St. Louis around the MLB All-Star Game.
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To learn more about this site, read About PredictionMachine.com and About the Predictalator.