startup predicts soccer results

Anyone else find this ridiculous enough to be amusing?

"What if you could predict 9 out of 10 soccer matches? You might be tempted to bet big. A new startup says it can do precisely that by using a complex algorithm that considers everything from the weather to a coach's birthday."

http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/12/technology/innovation/betegy-soccer-betting/index.html

Quote: jon

Anyone else find this ridiculous enough to be amusing?

"What if you could predict 9 out of 10 soccer matches? You might be tempted to bet big. A new startup says it can do precisely that by using a complex algorithm that considers everything from the weather to a coach's birthday."

http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/12/technology/innovation/betegy-soccer-betting/index.html

I wrote a simple Neural network in by 3rd year at University that was about 52% accurate, merely using goal differential for the last 5 games, and the last 5 home/away games. It wasn't much use, as the types of games it was getting right tended to be odds on favourite for the particular result. I didn't have much time to improve it, but I could see someone taking it much much further.

Oh, I don't deny there are sophisticated techniques to predict sports outcomes. What I find amusing is that if someone really had developed a superior algorithm to predict sports results, why would they sell it? Why not make bets themselves and make a killing?

do they consider when i am refereeing? :)

It's not a bad idea. Just publish the results for the whole season ahead of time, and now there's no need to actually play the games. :)