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AI For Sports Betting and How It Impacts Winning

A photo of a robot surrounded by mathematical equations.

In recent years, the rise of AI for sports betting, along with in numerous other avenues of life, has been quite noticeable. In the sports betting industry, it has proven to be a tool used by both bettors and sportsbooks. Machine learning can be used to help make AI sports betting predictions by processing data sets that could help analyze a game.

Using AI for sports betting has become prominent enough that the industry went from being valued at $2.2 billion in 2022 and is now projected to be upward of $30 billion by 2032, per Allied Market Research.

Below, I’ll tackle this subject from numerous angles, including touching on the best AI for sports betting, how to use AI for sports betting, the showdown between bettor and bookmaker, the ethical considerations, and looking ahead to the future.

Best AI for Sports Betting: Industry Adoption & Top Use Cases

When it comes to analyzing sports betting picks, it’s always been a numbers game. Now, bettors and operators of sports betting apps are adopting AI to help price odds better and provide a better experience for players.

So far, we’ve seen FanDuel use AI-driven models for play-by-play NFL betting. At DraftKings, there are wagers recommended to players based on their betting history and behavior.

When it comes to the “best AI for sports betting,” there’s not a single product that you can go out and buy and bam — you’re a successful sports bettor.

Instead, there is a collection of applications.

These include advanced predictive analytics, real-time odds adjustment, automated betting bots, and, as mentioned with DraftKings, a personalized betting experience.

AI can be used to analyze team history, player performance, and weather, and to recalculate odds in real-time based on live events like injuries. It can also help make wagers more accurately by cutting out human error.

There are some companies out there starting to assist with sports betting in the AI realm, such as DeepBetting, a French startup that describes itself as “a French startup that sells betting tips based on artificial intelligence algorithms, such as machine learning and deep learning.”

It’s unclear how successful tools like these actually are, especially from companies, so proceed with caution, but this is an industry that is beginning to grow and will only get bigger as technology improves.

AI Sports Betting Predictions: Accuracy vs. Reality

While some AI sports betting outlets may overstate their success, there have been models that have proved to be useful. For example, according to Skrill, one of the world’s biggest e-wallets, IBM’s Watson has one of them.

“By analyzing player performance, team dynamics, and external factors, Watson can provide insights that far surpass traditional methods. These AI-driven predictions not only enhance the betting experience but also increase bettors’ chances of making successful wagers,” Skrill writes.

While these tools are getting better, it’s not as if you pay a subscription to a service and now you’re making money hand over fist. These models can’t predict the future, and you also have to consider the odds and vig for each matchup.

Even if an AI model can win 50-55% of the time, there could still be losses due to the betting odds of the games won versus those lost, which is a flaw in AI sports betting predictions.

For now, use these as tools, but not as a 1:1 guide to follow and abide by at all times. There’s no single “best AI for sports betting.”

Using AI for Sports Betting: An Arms Race Between Bettors and Bookmakers

While bettors are using AI for sports betting, bookmakers are too.

And guess what? They have far more resources than you and I.

On one side, you have professional bettors using AI to help find mispriced odds, project game probabilities, and use real-time data to help snag a wager before a sportsbook can alter odds for something such as an injury or a lineup change.

Conversely, sportsbooks can use AI to adjust odds within seconds. There could also be sharper lines, which means less room for potential profit than in the past.

The AI used by bookmakers is also used in fraud detection and can perhaps identify accounts that are consistently winning and could restrict them.

This is an arms race that’s only just beginning.

Ethical and Practical Considerations

With the rise of AI in sports betting comes concerns in the ethical and practical realm. For example, sure, you may have a more personalized betting experience, but that comes at the cost of data privacy and gathering. There could also be concern that AI used by sportsbooks is changing odds in unfair ways or perhaps singling out specific players.

There are some positives, too, though. AI can be used to help identify players who may be exhibiting problematic gambling patterns, and this could help refer them to the site’s responsible gaming features/tools.

There’s also perhaps a concern about society and the sports betting community having an over-reliance on AI. It’s not as simple as doing whatever the algorithm says. Humans are still playing the games, and things happen.

The best outcome for “how to use AI for sports betting” may be using AI as a tool to help sort through data, but then applying that new knowledge, your own research, and intuition to make your best bets.

It’s safe to say that AI and sports betting will go hand in hand, perhaps until the end of time at this point. There’s no turning back, it seems.

Right now, we’re getting personalized betting experiences, data analysis, and help in finding edges.

However, at least for now, it’s not a guarantee to generate wins. It’s best used as a tool to help crunch large sets of data and apply it to your betting knowledge and insight into the game.

Perhaps it could happen in the future, but AI sports betting predictions simply cannot identify something like Aaron Judge hitting a home run. It can provide the probability, but there’s no way it can definitively predict anything like that.

There’s going to be AI used by sportsbooks to help change odds within seconds of news breaking, so finding those odds before a sportsbook can adjust will only get harder.

I’m not too sure where this all ends up in 10, 20, or 50 years from now, but one thing is for sure: like AI in all other uses in life, it’s the worst it’ll ever be right now. It’ll only get better.

What that means, we’ll all have to find out ourselves.

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