Digital innovation in sports has been a common topic over the past few weeks and it is fascinating to see the different ways that technology has entered the world of sports. Computers have us questioning the role of referees and statistics have completely changed how athletes train, but what about using technology to predict the outcome of sports? This has been going on for years, but now that artificial intelligence has become a common topic of discussion since the launch of ChatGPT this past November, people are starting to explore the endless uses of artificial intelligence. While scrolling through Twitter recently, I saw that someone had successfully used AI to predict the outcome of NFL playoff games. After inputting data from the two teams into ChatGPT’s Davinci model, the user was able to use the model to generate predictions (Benzinga). The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles were teams that ChatGPT picked to win, and the model had picked the winners of three NFL playoff games the week prior. Now I know we are all thinking the same thing: who will win the Super Bowl? Unfortunately, it is not as simple as I hoped, and ChatGPT’s Davinci model is “the most capable model” that is offered. It is not free and costs $0.0200 per 1K tokens. For reference, one token is equivalent to 4 characters or about 0.75 words (OpenAI). The point here is that it is not free to use ChatGPT’s most powerful model, and it requires the inputting of data to make a realistic prediction.
Using artificial intelligence to predict the outcome of sporting events feels somewhat odd and off-putting to me, and it has a sci-fi feel to it that reminds me of Back to the Future Part II when Biff uses the sports almanac along with the time machine to become an extremely wealthy sports bettor. That is beyond the main focus of this blog post, but it does lead me to the next topic that I would like to cover. Many documented side effects of digital innovation are worrisome and unpleasant to learn about, and gambling addiction is high on the list. The warning message on the DraftKings’ advertisement that reads “Gambling Problem? Call (877-8-HOPENY)” is a clue as to what potential dangers lurk in the world of gambling, and it is reminiscent of the Surgeon General’s warnings that are on cigarette boxes. Will there soon be regulation that bans companies from showing advertisements about sports betting? Many people are struggling with gambling addictions and the National Problem Gambling Helpline Network has seen a 45% increase in the number of calls, texts, and chats from 2021 to 2022. The constant showing of gambling advertisements is surely adding fuel to this fire (NPR).
Whether you support sports gambling or not, the industry’s marketing campaigns have been quite excessive and very noticeable. Nothing can beat as Burger King’s “Whopper” commercial, but DraftKings, MGM, and FanDuel advertisements have dominated commercial breaks. These companies have seemingly ridiculous promotional offerings and the Kevin Hart DraftKings ad above claims that a five-dollar bet can turn into a quick two hundred dollars if your team wins (DraftKings). This seems far too good to be true, and the high volume of these types of advertisements demonstrates the profitability of running an online sports book. I am not a bettor myself, but this is an important ethical discussion. It does not make sense to me how these advertisements can be repetitively shown to the general public when there are serious risks associated with easily accessible gambling platforms such as DraftKings and FanDuel. The idea for this blog post originally came from the potential use of artificial intelligence to correctly predict the outcomes of sporting events, but the accessible nature of online gambling via smartphone apps seems too controversial for me to ignore.
Ultimately, this is a lucrative industry that is not struggling. These sportsbooks have brought in $13.7 billion of revenue since the Supreme Court overturned a law in 2018 that limited sports betting, and this impressive revenue is largely why the NFL made a record $1.8 billion in sponsorship revenue in 2021 (Fortune). The sportsbooks and sports leagues have been winning, but this money comes from somewhere. The consumer must be protected from this predatory industry, and the combination of more information and reachable gambling hotlines undoubtedly helps. Many industries that are profiting from some variation of digital innovation (crypto) are going to be affected by government regulation in the future, and accountability for these companies is necessary if users are going to be protected.
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Hey Matthew, great post and I really enjoyed reading on how AI will effect sports betting in the future. Also, I enjoyed how you talked about the implications of how accessible sports betting is becoming and bringing some awareness to the addiction that is gambling. I am very interested in this topic and had found an article on twitter last week discussing this as well. How will the use of more expensive and powerful AI used by big companies make sure they are still profiting off people betting and using less powerful AI tools.
Hi Matthew! This post is really informative and I like how you provided examples for each point that you made. I think that since there are so many new ideas and forms of technology, especially related to AI and using it in a lot of different parts of daily life, sports would be a place that a lot of people would focus on since there’s so many fans who are really passionate about the sport they enjoy. I agree that trying to use AI to predict the outcome of the game wouldn’t be the right thing to do, and I think there should be more awareness for the severity of sports betting and the gambling addiction that come from this type of use of technology.
Hey Matthew! Lots of great information here and I enjoyed reading it. I think you bring up a great question with “Will there soon be regulation that bans companies from showing advertisements about sports betting” and I’d like to think so. It is just a matter of fact of who will take that first step of presenting the regulation.
AI predicting games is just something I’m not sure I can believe in. I just believe there’s too many factors to consider such as play calling and what not. Would AI have the Giants beating the 16-0 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII? Would it have the Cavaliers coming back from 3-1 against a legendary 73-9 Warriors? I’m just not sure if I believe in the future of it or it’s reliability considering the various factors (like ChatGPT said). I see in the Benzinga article that the user factored in Mahomes’ ankle and listed him at 80% designation and that only changed the prediction by 1 point. Is AI considering the possibility of injury though?
Personally, I’ll just believe in the coin toss curse until it is broken.
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/super-bowl-coin-toss-curse-why-eagles-and-chiefs-might-actually-want-to-lose-the-coin-toss-this-year/
Interesting topic to cover, Mathew. I particularly appreciated when you highlighted the implications of using AI to aid in sports gambling. Although it may be a far-off concept to consider, I personally think that sports betting was leaning in this direction regardless. Before the surge of online betting platforms such as FanDuel, DraftKings, and PrizePicks, Vegas has been making money on sports betting for decades. With all innovation, these apps just brought Vegas to their pockets. Setting odds for betting involves a complicated algorithm that considers several factors in order to set the spread for a specific contest. One thing we learned about ML models and AI is that it will compute what you tell it to and is capable of solving some elaborate algorithms. What AI is doing for the sports-betting industry is just making it accessible to find the best option to bet with and level the playing field to make the best choice against what Vegas is telling people. As for the problem with the oversaturation of marketing campaigns regarding sports betting, I’m sure some type of regulation will come down eventually. Very interesting topic! I enjoyed reading it.
Hello Matthew! This was an interesting blog post to read. I know that sports gambling is growing as states enforce new legislation, but I never thought about how AI would affect sports gambling. I liked how you talked about different sportsbooks and how government regulations in the future will try to alter the sports gambling industry.
Nice post. Last week seemed to be the theme around digital innovation in sports officiating, this week about sports betting. It’s in the news quite a lot though, so I get it!