How Lazy Edge Works

From raw data to actionable trading signals in under 2 seconds.

Architecture Data Sources ML Engine Signals API Reference Authentication Webhooks Dashboard

Architecture Overview

End-to-end pipeline from raw data ingestion to signal delivery.

ESPN

ESPN Play-by-Play

60s polling

DB

Live Events DB

live_events table

ML

ML Engine

HMM + Hawkes

EDGE

Edge Signals

BUY / SELL / HOLD

UI

Dashboard

API

REST API

WH

Webhooks

KAL

Kalshi Markets

5min snapshots

DB

Kalshi Snapshots

kalshi_snapshots table

Edge Calculation

Data Sources

REAL-TIME

ESPN Play-by-Play

We poll the ESPN scoreboard API every 60 seconds during game hours (6 PM – midnight ET). For every active game, we fetch possession-level play-by-play events: made/missed shots, turnovers, steals, fouls, rebounds, and timeouts.

Written to: live_events

MARKET

Kalshi Prediction Markets

Every 5 minutes we snapshot all open NBA markets from Kalshi across three series: KXNBAWIN (moneyline), KXNBASPREAD (spread), and KXNBAPTS (totals). We capture bid/ask, implied probability, spread value, and 24h volume.

Written to: kalshi_snapshots

PRE-GAME

Elo Power Ratings

Pre-game power ratings updated after every game. Factors in home-court advantage, rest days, back-to-backs, and recent form over the last 10 games. Each team carries a rolling Elo that regresses toward the mean at season boundaries.

ENRICHMENT

Coaching, Lineups, Pace

We ingest coaching profiles (timeout tendencies, adjustment windows), lineup clustering via ANC (Agglomerative Nested Clustering), and pace metrics to enrich signals with context the market often ignores.

ML Engine

HMM State Detection

A Hidden Markov Model identifies the current game state from the sequence of possession outcomes. Four states are modeled:

RUN Scoring burst
DROUGHT Scoring drought
EQUILIB Equilibrium
MOMENTUM — Shift in progress

Hawkes Process Momentum

A self-exciting point process models clustering of scoring events. When a team goes on a run, the intensity spikes—and our model detects it before the market adjusts. Decay rate is tuned per-team based on historical pace.

Pregame Feature Matrix

Five signal layers feed the pregame model:

Elo differential (home vs. away)
Rest & schedule context
Lineup ANC cluster matchup
Coaching tendency profile
Pace & venue adjustment

Edge & Position Sizing

edge = our_prob - kalshi_implied

Position sizing uses quarter-Kelly criterion:

kelly = 0.25 × (p × odds - (1-p)) / odds

Where p = our probability, odds = derived from Kalshi implied. Quarter-Kelly balances growth with drawdown protection.

Signal Types

Trade Signals

BUY

Edge ≥ +3%

Our model thinks the team is underpriced. The market hasn't caught up to a momentum shift, lineup change, or coaching adjustment.

edge: +5.2% • kelly: 3.1% • conf: HIGH

SELL

Edge ≤ -3%

Our model thinks the team is overpriced. Fade the public—the market is lagging behind a drought or matchup problem.

edge: -4.8% • kelly: 2.7% • conf: MED

HOLD

Edge between -3% and +3%

No actionable edge. The market is efficiently priced for this game right now.

edge: +0.8% • kelly: 0.0% • conf: LOW

Enrichment Indicators

COACHING INACTION

Coach hasn't called a timeout during an opponent run of 8+ points. Historical data shows teams that don't break runs here lose the spread 67% of the time.

FOUL TROUBLE

A starter has 4+ fouls before the 4th quarter. Lineup degradation incoming—net rating drops ~6 pts/100 possessions on average.

LINEUP ANC

Current 5-man unit clusters into an archetype with known strengths/weaknesses. Matchup context the market rarely prices in.

VENUE EDGE

Home-court Elo boost, altitude factor (DEN/UTA), and rest-day differential create a pre-game edge layer.

API Reference

Full endpoint documentation. For an interactive explorer, see the dedicated API docs.

FREE No API key required

GET /health Service health check

curl https://api.lazyedge.net/health

{
  "status": "ok",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-21T02:15:00Z",
  "version": "2.1.0"
}

GET /games/today Today's NBA games

curl https://api.lazyedge.net/games/today

{
  "date": "2026-03-21",
  "games": [
    {
      "game_id": "401584567",
      "home": "BOS", "away": "LAL",
      "status": "in_progress",
      "quarter": 3, "clock": "4:32",
      "home_score": 78, "away_score": 72
    }
  ]
}

GET /elo/{team} Pre-game Elo rating for a team

curl https://api.lazyedge.net/elo/BOS

{
  "team": "BOS",
  "elo": 1642,
  "rank": 2,
  "last_updated": "2026-03-20T06:00:00Z"
}

BASIC $29/mo — 1,000 calls/day

GET /signal/live/{game_id} Live edge signals for a game

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/signal/live/401584567

{
  "game_id": "401584567",
  "signal": "BUY",
  "team": "BOS",
  "edge": 0.052,
  "our_prob": 0.68,
  "kalshi_implied": 0.628,
  "timestamp": "2026-03-21T02:15:00Z"
}

GET /signal/buy All current BUY signals

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/signal/buy

{
  "signals": [
    {
      "game_id": "401584567",
      "team": "BOS", "edge": 0.052,
      "signal": "BUY", "kelly": 0.031
    }
  ],
  "count": 1
}

GET /edge/team/{team_abbr} Team edge profile

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/edge/team/BOS

{
  "team": "BOS",
  "elo": 1642,
  "avg_edge_30d": 0.028,
  "buy_signals_30d": 14,
  "win_rate_on_buy": 0.71
}

PRO $99/mo — 10,000 calls/day

GET /signal/live/{game_id}/full Full signals with enrichment data

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/signal/live/401584567/full

{
  "game_id": "401584567",
  "signal": "BUY", "team": "BOS",
  "edge": 0.052, "kelly": 0.031,
  "our_prob": 0.68, "kalshi_implied": 0.628,
  "hmm_state": "momentum",
  "hawkes_intensity": 0.84,
  "enrichment": {
    "coaching_inaction": false,
    "foul_trouble": ["J. Tatum"],
    "lineup_anc_cluster": "elite_spacing",
    "venue_edge": 0.018
  },
  "timestamp": "2026-03-21T02:15:00Z"
}

GET /coaching/{team_abbr} Coaching analytics profile

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/coaching/BOS

{
  "team": "BOS",
  "coach": "Joe Mazzulla",
  "timeout_tendency": "passive",
  "avg_timeout_delay_seconds": 142,
  "adjustment_window_q": 2,
  "challenge_success_rate": 0.48
}

GET /lineup/{team_abbr} Lineup clustering profiles

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/lineup/BOS

{
  "team": "BOS",
  "lineups": [
    {
      "players": ["Tatum","Brown","White","Holiday","Porzingis"],
      "anc_cluster": "elite_spacing",
      "net_rating": 12.4,
      "minutes": 284
    }
  ]
}

GET /pace/{team_abbr} Pace analytics

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/pace/BOS

{
  "team": "BOS",
  "pace": 98.7,
  "pace_rank": 14,
  "half_court_freq": 0.62,
  "transition_freq": 0.38
}

POST /webhook/register Register BUY signal webhook

curl -X POST -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://your-server.com/hook","secret":"your_hmac_secret"}' \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/webhook/register

{
  "id": "wh_abc123",
  "url": "https://your-server.com/hook",
  "status": "active",
  "created_at": "2026-03-21T02:15:00Z"
}

GET /webhooks List your registered webhooks

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/webhooks

{
  "webhooks": [
    {
      "id": "wh_abc123",
      "url": "https://your-server.com/hook",
      "status": "active",
      "created_at": "2026-03-21T02:15:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

DELETE /webhook/{id} Deactivate a webhook

curl -X DELETE -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/webhook/wh_abc123

{
  "id": "wh_abc123",
  "status": "deactivated"
}

ELITE $299/mo — Unlimited calls

GET /historical/edges Backtested edge data (paginated)

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  "https://api.lazyedge.net/historical/edges?page=1&per_page=50"

{
  "edges": [
    {
      "game_id": "401584100",
      "date": "2026-03-18",
      "team": "GSW", "signal": "BUY",
      "edge": 0.061, "result": "win"
    }
  ],
  "page": 1, "per_page": 50, "total": 1243
}

GET /signal/stream Server-Sent Events real-time stream

curl -N -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/signal/stream

event: signal
data: {"game_id":"401584567","signal":"BUY","team":"BOS","edge":0.052}

event: signal
data: {"game_id":"401584590","signal":"SELL","team":"MIA","edge":-0.041}

WS /ws/live WebSocket real-time stream

// JavaScript
const ws = new WebSocket(
  "wss://api.lazyedge.net/ws/live?api_key=le_your_key_here"
);
ws.onmessage = (e) => console.log(JSON.parse(e.data));

{
  "type": "signal_update",
  "game_id": "401584567",
  "signal": "BUY", "team": "BOS",
  "edge": 0.052, "kelly": 0.031,
  "timestamp": "2026-03-21T02:15:00Z"
}

Authentication

API Key Authentication

Pass your API key in the X-API-Key header with every request:

curl -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/signal/buy

Your API key is generated when you subscribe to a paid plan. You can view it on your Account page. Keys are prefixed with le_ for easy identification.

Rate Limits

TierDaily LimitRate

FREE 100 calls/day No key required

BASIC 1,000 calls/day 10 req/sec

PRO 10,000 calls/day 50 req/sec

ELITE Unlimited 100 req/sec

When rate-limited, the API returns 429 Too Many Requests with a Retry-After header in seconds.

Web Dashboard Sessions

The web dashboard uses session cookies (HttpOnly, SameSite=Lax) set at login. Sessions expire after 24 hours. No API key is needed for dashboard access—just log in.

Webhook Guide

Registering a Webhook

Pro and Elite users can register webhooks to receive BUY signals in real-time. Provide a publicly accessible HTTPS URL and an HMAC secret:

curl -X POST -H "X-API-Key: le_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://your-server.com/webhook/lazy-edge",
    "secret": "your_hmac_secret_here"
  }' \
  https://api.lazyedge.net/webhook/register

Payload Format

When a BUY signal fires, we POST the following JSON to your registered URL:

{
  "event": "signal.buy",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-21T02:15:00Z",
  "data": {
    "game_id": "401584567",
    "team": "BOS",
    "edge": 0.052,
    "kelly": 0.031,
    "our_prob": 0.68,
    "kalshi_implied": 0.628,
    "hmm_state": "momentum"
  }
}

HMAC Signature Verification

Every webhook request includes an X-LE-Signature header containing an HMAC-SHA256 signature of the request body using your secret:

# Python verification example
import hmac, hashlib

def verify_signature(payload_body, signature, secret):
    expected = hmac.new(
        secret.encode(), payload_body, hashlib.sha256
    ).hexdigest()
    return hmac.compare_digest(f"sha256={expected}", signature)

Retry Policy

If your endpoint returns a non-2xx status or times out (10s), we retry with exponential backoff:

Retry 1: after 30 seconds
Retry 2: after 2 minutes
Retry 3: after 10 minutes

After 3 failed retries, the webhook is marked as failing. After 24 hours of continuous failures, it is automatically deactivated. Check your webhook status via GET /webhooks.

Dashboard Guide

What Each Tier Sees

FREE

Free Dashboard

Tonight's game cards (teams, scores, status)
Pre-game Elo ratings
Game schedule and start times

BASIC

Basic Dashboard

Everything in Free
Live signal table (BUY / SELL / HOLD badges)
Edge percentage for each game
Team edge profile lookups

PRO

Pro Dashboard

Everything in Basic
Full signal cards with Kelly fraction
Enrichment indicators on each game card
Coaching, lineup, and pace analytics panels

ELITE

Elite Dashboard

Everything in Pro
Real-time streaming feed (auto-updates)
Historical edge data explorer
Backtest performance charts

Game Cards

Each game is shown as a card with teams, score, quarter/clock, and signal status. The signal badge (BUY/SELL/HOLD) updates in real-time for paid users. Edge percentage and Kelly fraction are shown alongside the badge for Pro+ users.

Signal Badges

Signal badges are color-coded for quick scanning:

BUY SELL HOLD

Enrichment Indicators

Pro+ game cards show contextual enrichment tags below the signal. These highlight factors like coaching inaction, foul trouble, favorable lineup matchups, and venue edge—context the market is often slow to price in.

Ready to Find Your Edge?

Start with a free account. Upgrade anytime for live signals, enrichment data, and API access.

Create Free Account Explore the API