Soccer Soothsayer
Betegy, a startup here in the Polish capital, is claiming just that on some games in major European and and global leagues.
CEO and founder Alex Kornilov, a Ukrainian who came to Poland to study, said the company has just signed a deal with a U.S. broadcaster to provide forecasts for its soccer service. The details will be made public shortly. The company is working on a prediction engine that will be able to forecast the score.
At the heart of the company is an algorithm that takes in a huge range of factors. These include not just past performance, but things such as whether it is the manager’s birthday, a significant home match, even the weather. “Imagine that, say, Manchester United is playing Liverpool,” said Mr. Kornilov. “We know that Manchester United has more players who can strike from long distance. Usually in poor weather the manager will tell players to shoot from further out. Knowing these small things allows us to tweak the analysis in favor of Manchester United.”
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Todd’s Take: I won’t automatically rule out the accuracy of a math model when it comes to predicting sports scores because you never know where the next great innovation will come from. However, the fact this start-up is looking to sell their model publicly rather than bet the games the algorithm produces instantly makes me skeptical. Put simply if you have a secret sauce that can keep making money, you don’t run to share it with the world unless you have something to hide.
