Matt Floyd
Expert Handicapper
Expert Handicapper
For over 20 years, I've had many posts in the tech world - from technical writer to technical engineer to data architect. Data is my passion and professional specialty - I've even written or co-authored a couple technical software books about data visualization and data storytelling. Another interest is the intersection of data with near-future technologies, and I'm very fortunate to have over 20 patents in technologies from self-driving vehicles to drone fleet data collection to blockchain to cognitive computing.
In the past few years, I've combined my love of data and analytics with sports. I grew up in the midwest and the south - the nexus of Auburn, Alabama, and now Georgia all are close to my family. For a while, I channeled my love of college sports into a sports merchandise manufacturing business, and got to know the universities well. Now I'm a sports data scout in addition to my regular architect work, and I get paid to attend college sporting events and report on statistics for large data management companies. My love of writing about data led into an opportunity where I get to be a game analyst, and now a capper who looks at games every day and apply analytics to predict outcomes.
Handicapping is an art and science that combines raw data with trends (player, team, conference, and league) and psychology (of the betting public as well as player and team). My experience is - if you favor data over trends, you will lose, and vice versa. I comb through data, public betting trends, and university sports department recaps - as well as watching an enormous amount of games - to come up with the best picks I can. I even read academic papers on data modeling of sports picking, and have developed techniques to pull data into my own data visualizations to help me gain clarity, always looking for value. Capping is a lifelong learning event and I'm a lifelong learner. Love the sport, love the data, and you will have success.
I'm constantly looking for the best analytical techniques to combine with trends and sports knowledge for the best value available. You'll always know I'm tweaking the models and mining for data points and bringing those to you in my picks. Ride with me to harness the power of deep statistical analysis making sense of the crush of data - together we will find the hidden diamonds.
