Sports betting used to be all about trying to predict the outcome of a particular contest, in which a punters favorite team/player or sport was being played in the hope of trying to turn a profit from an online sportsbook or a traditional bookmaker.
However, as time has continued to go by, sports betting has undergone many innovative changes that have made it a lot more than previously described. Indeed, time has allowed new technologies to be introduced, with sports betting having seen some rather pretty big innovative technologies available to help those involved in the industry.
For instance, two of the biggest changes to have been introduced into the sports betting industry in recent times include the use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.
What is Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?
It is worth understanding what Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are and how they work to understand how they had shaped the sports betting industry in a way that other technologies before they had not managed to achieve.
Starting with Big Data, this is the raw input that needs to be cleaned, structured and integrated before it can be used effectively. This data could include stats, individuals, rules of a specific sporting discipline and other pieces of information that are relatively constant and do not undergo too many changes.
Artificial Intelligence, which is also commonly known as AI, is the data derived from the Big Data that has been inputted, and this is known as the intelligence that is received. The two processes work hand-in-hand with each other, as Artificial Intelligence requires the information that has been inputted, whilst Big Data is essentially useless on its own.
How has it started to shape the sports betting industry?
One of the ways Big Data and Artificial Intelligence have helped shape the sports betting industry is that it has provided bookmakers such as Indiana Unibet to produce more realistic odds when providing them to their punters.
Of course, there will be an argument that this could be a disadvantage to a punter; however, there are also advantages to the technology being used. For instance, the technologies involved will allow for the bookmakers to analyze the previous games that have taken part and determine a pattern that can provide some of the most realistic odds where possible.
As mentioned, it can help players predict the outcomes of certain sports events that they may be betting on. Whilst many would have been arguing that it is not fair that bookmakers use it to set realistic odds, they are not the only ones that are exploiting the possibility of using Big Data and Artificial Intelligence in sports betting.
Punters can use the technology to their advantage by using the data to make predictions based on what has happened in the past. They will be able to compare and analyze the two teams taking part in a football match to determine the game’s outcome. It is believed Big Data can help to predict the winner in more than 90% of the matches, and the sports betting industry saw proof of that during the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Google used their Cloud DataFlow tool to import the data they had managed to acquire and then used their Google BigQuery program to analyze it. By doing this, they correctly predicted the outcome of 14 of the 16 matches looked at, whereas Microsoft managed to predict 15 of 16 matches tested correctly.
Big Data and Artificial Intelligence is used to improve marketing
Many online sports betting operators will now look to use Big Data and Artificial Intelligence technologies to their advantage when trying to improve their marketing campaigns.
Online companies can acquire a wide array of data from those that visit their sites via the use of cookies, as they can find out everything that they allow them permission to access.
For instance, online sportsbooks will be able to find out a visitors favorite team, or they may be able to find out information such as a preferred sport, therefore being provided with the ability to tailor offers and rewards in a way that is appealing to potential clients.
