Artificial intelligence and betting: neural networks for predicting sports events

Table of contents:

• ODDS AND PREDICTING RESULTS
• NEURAL PREDICTION IN FOOTBALL

Scientists researching artificial intelligence have a lot of mystery to solve: AI theorists and developers are not only trying to discover the essence of human intelligence, they are also trying to create intelligent units in their own right. What we need is not ordinary intelligence, but error-free thinking, a rational agent that will not fail.

Intelligent tasks are automated in AI, so this field is concerned with any area of human intellectual activity.

As we know, big sports, betting and risk are the lot of true intellectuals who have bypassed Alan Turing's test and John Searle's "China Room" to move from philosophy of consciousness to pure profit.

Let's take a look at how bookmakers have managed to improve sports prediction.

ODDS AND PREDICTING RESULTS

What is a betting company in general and how does it work?

A bookmaker is an organisation that accepts bets on different outcomes of events and sets the odds of winning. In contrast to betting, in a bookmaker's company each participant can calculate his own winnings in advance. To do so, all you have to do is multiply your stake by the bookmaker's odds. Talented bookmakers usually offer a large number of odds and options, and they will have a percentage on everything.

Your winnings will not only benefit you! If the bookmaker makes a wrong prediction and calculates the probabilities, he runs the risk of losing margins and assets. So there are a lot of factors to consider when making a prediction. Odds and sports prediction - that's the subject of artificial intelligence.

Complexity of calculations and multivariates are not a surprise any more, they are just numbers. But accurate forecasting requires analysis of a huge amount of information. It is like intuition, only a million times more powerful.

NEURAL PREDICTION IN FOOTBALL

Don't have to go far to find successful examples of how AI can be applied to betting. At the University of Lausanne's laboratory, three PhD students created artificial intelligence-based technology that predicted the results of Euro 2016 matches. The trio of football oracles have developed methods of predicting football matches which are many times more accurate than machine predictions!

Their system takes into account the personal performance of individual participants, so more variables are taken into account, whereas conventional programmes analyse the performance of the whole team.

Event probabilities are analysed using Bayesian inference. In simple terms, this statistical method allows us to understand the credibility of the prediction. It takes into account uncertain factors that can have an unexpected influence on the outcome of an event. The presence of a new player in the team, for instance, or an unknown opponent. 

A recent example is the football match between Iceland and Portugal at Euro 2016. The likelihood of victory for Portugal was obvious. But this was the first time the Icelandic team had been seen in a serious world championship. Therefore, the result of the match, in terms of neuro-prediction, could be very unexpected. This is factored into the new system's odds. To everyone's surprise, the match ended in a draw. Artificial intelligence versus public opinion - 1-1! 

While the bookies of the world and Best Betting Sites in India were using the same routine and were guided by the collective intelligence, the technology of the Swiss scientists worked like clockwork!

The kickoff website published the results of the Euro 2016 prediction. The accuracy of the predictions is 80%. This program has turned the sports prediction field upside down!

FOOTBALL MATCH PREDICTION FROM IT-CORPORATIONS

Now let's move on from the startup to the IT giants. They too have not stayed away from football and have shown the power of AI in an alternative sphere.

Microsoft launched its cloud-based Cortana Intelligence Suite, which immediately produced a successful prediction - France beat Romania 2-1 in the opening round of the Euro 2016 football championship.

Such an accurate prediction by the Cortana Intelligence Suite is the result of processing gigabytes of information about the competitors in the championship. Previous games, players' performance, together and individually, their injuries. It also analyses news content and social media posts.

Once in the service, the information is constantly being updated. Thus, football match predictions are made on the basis of the most up-to-date data.  

Corporations such as Google and Yahoo have also shown themselves and engaged in forecasting with the help of neural networks. Google's neural services used internal team characteristics, while Yahoo analysed detailed statistics from four years ago: line-ups, performance and team development. Both programmes predicted a German championship win. But, as we know, the French and Portuguese competed to win Euro 2016. In short, the IT headliners underperformed their predictions...