Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Data Analytics in Sports Betting

The buzz surrounding advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been impossible to avoid during the last twelve months. Much of that excitement can be attributed to a single company and just one of its products, that being OpenAI and ChatGPT respectively. What you might not know is that ChatGPT does not represent the bleeding edge of this technology – the underlying code is tied to OpenAI’s GPT-3 large language model that was initially completed in June 2020.

Despite being two years old, ChatGPT amazed the general public when OpenAI made the software free for non-commercial public use at the end of 2022. Engaging in conversation with ChatGPT can be an unnerving experience – its answers to natural language questions are complex, convincing, and in many cases, factually correct. Previous ‘narrow AI’ systems such as IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer were designed to solve a single task or problem, whereas ChatGPT represents a major step towards generalized AI thanks to its self-learning and generative capabilities.

Data Analytics

If you’re involved in the fast-growing sports betting industry in any capacity, you probably already have some understanding of the power of data analytics. Ever since the first bets were taken on horse and greyhound races, sports bettors have been studying ‘the form’ to help them make decisions regarding which runners to back; predicting future performances would be nothing but guesswork without access to historical data and metrics related to previous races.

Of course, it’s not just the bettors who study data in the hope of recognizing trends in the betting market. The sportsbooks themselves rely on this data to set their initial prices, When punters begin placing wagers on a contest, the sportsbooks have an entirely new stream of data to consider which they use to adjust their prices in response to the bets being placed and the prices being offered by competing sportsbooks on the same event. Advances in data analytics have turned the industry into a cat-and-mouse game, with bettors trying their best to place value bets before the sportsbooks update their prices following changing market conditions.

The Artificial Intelligence Revolution

ChatGPT has proven that artificial intelligence-powered prediction models have reached a level of sophistication that has the potential to turn the current betting industry on its head. Predictive models that are powered by Artificial Intelligence can process vast amounts of data much faster than was previously possible – in many cases, the AI engine can even search for the necessary input data with minimal user intervention.

This presents an enormous challenge for the sportsbooks – these companies offer bets on thousands of markets and need to keep their prices updated constantly. In the past, bettors would have to compile vast data sets themselves to perform analysis on it – now that artificial intelligence engines are doing the heavy lifting in that area, the only option available to sportsbooks is to employ similar technologies themselves if they are to avoid being taken advantage of by professional and advantage bettors.

Conclusion

Some would argue that sports bettors currently have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on their hands – cloud computing services are now available at rock-bottom prices and allow you to rent time on a literal supercomputer for just a few dollars per hour. These systems allow you to gather data from a wide variety of sources, giving bettors the ability to make accurate judgements based on the most up-to-date information and evidence. Combining this technology with bonus offers and VIP schemes could allow you to make a serious profit as a professional sports bettor – at the very least, it will maximize your chances of doing so.

Technology continues to advance at breakneck pace in the modern era. Many of the world's largest sportsbooks and gambling companies are only just finding their feet after the move to online betting, but there’s no time for them to rest on their laurels if they want to remain profitable in an environment where members of the general public have access to powerful cloud-based AI prediction engines. Nevertheless, as difficult as the situation may be, it seems unlikely that the sportsbooks will fail to rise to their latest challenge.

All of this leaves just one question… what next? The cat-and-mouse game is likely to continue for the foreseeable future – bettors and sportsbooks alike will continue taking advantage of the latest technologies as they become available. Even so, for lowly bettors such as myself, I believe there has never been a better time to try and take advantage of modern technologies in the hope of gaining an edge – even a temporary one – over the sportsbooks.