The result of any given sports game is unpredictable, yet we humans try and predict results either on the basis of statistical analysis, or simply a hunch. Predicting the winner of any a game is part of the game viewing experience and has been a crucial selling point for the betting industry since the beginning. Another interesting method to predict results of games has recently surfaced: Prediction by using Machine Learning, in which the winner of the game or the tournament is predicted by companies who’ve used several different algorithms to predict these results.
Below are some of the companies that used Machine Learning to predict the results of the FIFA World Cup 2018 An algorithm was developed by a team which included researchers from, the Ghent University in Belgium, and the Technical University in Munich. The algorithm is fed data which ran approximately 100,000 simulations to predict Spain as the winner.