Findings / Is there home advantage in eSoccer?
Is there home advantage in eSoccer?
Barely. In the eAdriatic League the home side scores +0.056 goals more than the away side — about +1.9%. Both operators play in the same studio, so "home" is only a slot in the fixture list. Real football's home advantage is roughly 6 times larger, and importing it would bias every prediction.
Why it is almost nothing
There is no home. Both operators sit in the same studio on the same stream; the “home” side is a slot in a fixture list, not a stadium. No crowd, no travel, no pitch. What little remains — +0.056 goals, about +1.9% — is closer to a coin-flip artefact of who gets listed first than a real effect.
Why it matters anyway
Because the temptation is to reach for a football model and reuse its numbers. Home advantage in real football is worth somewhere around 0.35 goals. Carry that across and you have handed the home side roughly 6 times more than it deserves, on every single fixture, forever. It is a small mistake that never stops being wrong.
So is it in the model?
Yes, fitted rather than assumed — which is the point. The term is +0.018638 on the log scale, and it earns its place by being measured at nearly zero instead of being either invented or dropped on a hunch.
Measured on 97,101 eAdriatic League matches, refreshed nightly. How the model works · today’s fixtures.