Web scrape with rvest from a table that is not defined - r

Question

I am trying to get a table from this
website :
http://www.oddsportal.com/american-football/usa/nfl-2012-2013/results/
I actually want to get the table in the middle of the page.
I tried different ways but in vain.
library("rvest")
library(dplyr)
url1 <- "http://www.oddsportal.com/american-football/usa/nfl-2012-2013/results/"
table <- url1 %>%
read_html() %>%
html_nodes(xpath='//*[#id="tournamentTable"]') %>%
html_table(fill = T)
This does not work because i believe that the table is not defined as table.
I also tried to grab the rows separately by using:
df <- mps1 %>%
html_nodes(css = "tr.odd.deactivate,tr.center.nob-border")
but it obtains nothing.
Any idea how can I do it?
thanks

Answer 1

Based on previous questions by people trying to scrape from this site, this table is probably dynamically generated. As far as I know, the only way to deal with pages like this is to use RSelenium - which basically automates a browser.
After a lot of trial and error, the following code seems to work (using Chrome on Windows 10)...
library(RSelenium)
library(rvest)
library(dplyr)
url <- "http://www.oddsportal.com/american-football/usa/nfl-2012-2013/results/"
rD <- rsDriver(port=4444L,browser="chrome")
remDr <- rD$client
remDr$navigate(url)
page <- remDr$getPageSource()
remDr$close() #you can leave open if you are doing several of these: close at the end
table <- page[[1]] %>%
read_html() %>%
html_nodes(xpath='//table[#id="tournamentTable"]') %>% #specify table as there is a div with same id
html_table(fill = T)
table <- table[[1]]
head(table)
American Football» USA»NFL 2012/2013 American Football» USA»NFL 2012/2013 American Football» USA»NFL 2012/2013 American Football» USA»NFL 2012/2013 American Football» USA»NFL 2012/2013 American Football» USA»NFL 2012/2013
1 03 Feb 2013 - Play Offs 03 Feb 2013 - Play Offs 03 Feb 2013 - Play Offs 03 Feb 2013 - Play Offs 1.00 2.00
2 NA NA
3 23:30 San Francisco 49ers - Baltimore Ravens San Francisco 49ers - Baltimore Ravens 31:34 1.49 2.71
4 28 Jan 2013 - All Stars 28 Jan 2013 - All Stars 28 Jan 2013 - All Stars 28 Jan 2013 - All Stars 1.00 2.00
5 NA NA
6 00:00 NFC - AFC NFC - AFC 62:35 2.03 1.83
American Football» USA»NFL 2012/2013
1 B's
2
3 9
4 B's
5
6 9
The odds are coming out as decimal numbers, unfortunately, but hopefully you can work with that.