Sports Betting Algorithms: Opportunities for Your Business To Increase Revenue

Sports betting software as sophisticated forecasting algorithms is able to find beneficial opportunities for gambling businesses. It’s quite difficult to estimate the global betting market value because it’s not consistent with regulations worldwide. But Statista provides the following figures in 2020: the online gambling market is $58.9 bln and its gross win is $23.66 bln. Grand View Research predicts 11.5% betting market growth until 2027. They state that cost-effective mobile apps drive this growth significantly.

Being a global tech company, Innovecs delivers iGaming solutions and is focused on the market trends constantly. We’d like to draw your attention to the following tips, making business owners aware of sports betting algorithms as valuable and demanded tools for bettors:

• BBC reports engaged online gamblers spend more during lockdown;
• Globe Newswire notices increasing popularity of gambling apps (255% more downloads);
• According to Google, the closure of brick and mortar betting venues led to the relative search interest boost;
• Gambling Commission in the UK emphasizes an increase in online betting products use due to COVID-19 (gambling industry is expecting technologies to open new opportunities);
• On August 11, 2020, the bill concerning regulations of the organization and conducting of gambling activities was signed in Ukraine. So, the gambling market of Ukraine is developing as well.

So, if you think of possible ways for your gaming business to transform and grow, it’s the perfect time to focus on artificial intelligence and sports betting algorithms to boost the revenue and meet the needs of your target audience willing to bet a different way in future. This article is designed to give deeper insight into what sports betting algorithms are, how they are created, and in which way your business benefits from outsourcing art assets or sports betting solutions. We propose to begin with the overall virtual betting products profile.

Sports data companies offer betting solutions powered by AI algorithms which is a math formula arranging and evaluating data to answer complicated questions. Sports algorithms use relevant data (e.g. team or player statistics) to predict sport events outcomes. Let’s dive deeper into how neural networks powered by AI work, what betting algorithm types are, and how data is used for predictions.

When a huge amount of data is accumulated from the players and is ready for analysis, Neural Networks and machine learning algorithms are the right technologies to use.

Neural networks reflect human brain operations. And implementing them into machine learning algorithms boost the capability to solve complicated complex problems. The aim of such algorithms is to analyze data fast and clearly, escaping human errors and emotional evaluation. They’ve already worked successfully for years in the field of finance, and now software developers with proper skills are involved in creating algorithms able to predict accurately live match results.

One of the UK’s leading consultancy, Strategem, defines the potential and the key issues about betting algorithms. In their words, considering soccer betting algorithms examples: ‘Soccer has a short duration, it’s repeatable and with fixed rules. So, it’s easy to be analyzed, and it’s possible to observe about 100 000 games due to machine learning algorithms to find the patterns.’

Neural networks research repeatable game patterns and convert them into data sets suitable for machine learning analyses.

Either in tennis betting or in golf as well as in other sports betting algorithms generated via neural networks building are divided into two types under criterion what they target to gain:

• Betting arbitrage algorithms (the odds are changing for a certain sports result. Betting arbitrage algorithms mechanics is to place a bet knowing about favorable odds and then place another bet, which is against your original one);
• Value betting algorithms (they consider previous data matches and propose possibly profitable ways of betting).

Value betting seems to be more popular. This algorithm consists of two parts: it outlines the expected bet value and then suggests possible bet size considering how profitable it can be. Past matches data is encountered for value betting algorithms. For example, they analyze former football matches’ outcomes, and if the team scored 2.5 goals averagely, the algorithm concludes it can score more than 2 goals possibly in the upcoming match. That is the way algorithms work.

It doesn’t matter whether we develop horse race betting algorithms or football betting formulas, huge data is demanded. The more data you put in, the more chances your algorithms have to win. Win-loss records, points scored, red zone efficiency, penalties (for football), and other necessary data delivered by free and paid services existing on the net.
Data can be taken from the following sources:

• ESPN Football Power Index;
• FiveThirtyEight Analytics Power house;
• NFL ELO game;
• The OddsFactory (they run sport events simulations worldwide, playing every game about 10 000 times and spitting out the most likely outcomes).

To create a reliable algorithm one can make use of data from advanced analytic tools such as Corsi (indicates ‘the possessions’ and measures how much control the team has during the game, counting all shot attempts) or Fenwick (counts all unblocked shot attempts) in hockey betting.

On the web hundreds or even thousands of betting tools are available, but not all of them are trustworthy and effective. Once you decide to apply not a custom algorithm, it’s better to choose not a service you pay for only one time (they may be a scam), but those with a monthly fee (they are more likely to be based on advanced powerful data techniques).

But not only out-of-the-box solutions can provide good and reliable betting opportunities. If a provider strives to be presented across a variety of platforms (web, mobile, desktop) and implement the idea in accordance with its own vision, custom solutions can be used.

It’s possible to outsource tailored software not only for big sports, but, for example, for roulette or CS:GO betting. Most companies should be able to provide you with original data aggregation apps, ensuring information accuracy and granting the possibility to track both statistics and odds no matter the type of sports.

Of course, for the above mentioned it’s possible to use existing platforms and tools. But if you have certain requirements willing to create a unique product with a user-friendly design, and integrated with third-party live sports videos, it’s of significant importance to outsource software development. For example, like the horse race betting solution(s) performed by Innovecs.

Having implemented a custom solution, you gain the following benefits:

• The betting product covers more target audience since it’s compatible with laptop, desktop, and tablet;
• Virtual betting via your platform involves and captures more attention: people tend to spend more time online due to high-definition stunning videos, live stream availability, thousands of races or matches exclusively integrated;
• Individual options (e.g. possibility to skip to the end of the race) make betting software more user-friendly, hence increase of the loyal bettors leads to more revenues;
• You have the continuous possibility to integrate more and more betting markets, so as to scale smoothly and successfully.

So, the pros of the custom solutions outlined above are quite obvious, to say the least. And now, let’s see how enormous data is utilized to design successful algorithms either in custom software or in out-of-the-box solutions.

Betting algorithms are designed with the use of neural networks. Data sources for algorithms analyses and reliable predictions were enumerated in the article. So now, let’s follow the very process of composing a well-functioning algorithm for your gambling business.

Smart algorithms should not only be focused on accurate prediction, but on maximizing the profit. Actually we create an algorithm not foreseeing the game outcome, but that one to choose the bet most likely to win.

To design it we need to perform a number of requests and process them responsively, which can be completed due to Python having requests among its key solutions. As an example with Python, let’s see a bidding guide for basketball games in the NBA. One can find data not only about teams and locations in the app but also about open basketball betting lines.

To be aware of the very coding process one can consider the following stages:

• Data gathering, analyses, and patterns generation;
• The custom loss function used to measure how well the neural network performs;
• Custom loss function applied for betting algorithms is optionally written in Python (it computes potential profit);
• Loading gathered data from a file and testing it;
• Testing the model (the more games and matches we put in to analyze, the more accurate forecast algorithm will produce).

Of course, the described model is really simplified, but the key facts are clear: the data provided should be reliable and larger datasets are better for precise predictions. Algorithms will work better if the patterns are generated on the basis of trustworthy information from a variety of sources.

In this article we discussed that being originally used in finance, now algorithms are widely spread in sports betting being characterized as follows:

• Neural networks are successfully applied to generate game outcomes and bets profitability predictions;
• We can define such key algorithms types: value betting (measures probability of a certain outcome) and arbitrage betting (assists in placing a bet at favorable odds);
• Python is used as a powerful programming tool for creating dynamic bidding guides or other apps;
• Existing betting tools vs custom solutions are always a choice considering whether you have specific requirements (third-party live video integrations), plans to scale your platform in the future, or reach a broader audience via the custom cross-platform product (e.g. Innovecs’ on-demand virtual betting product);
• It doesn’t matter if you apply ready-made betting tools (Corsi or Fenwick) or tailored apps, the very principle of algorithm operation is not to predict a game result but to estimate the most profitable bets;

The online betting market is growing fast due to pandemic lockdown, hence the development and implementation of sports betting software leads to a significant revenue boost for your business.