iGaming Business magazine Futures Report 2019 | Page 17

FUTURES REPORT
DATA SCOUTING FOR
SPORTS BETTING
New technologies such as AI are enabling increasingly accurate and granular data
for sports betting. Dmytro Fedyukov discusses the need for these solutions
T
here are many benefits to increasing the
accuracy of data scouting in sports betting.
As well as increasing the trust and improving
the experience and gamification for players,
collecting more technical data opens up new and
unique markets to bet on.
However, our capabilities of doing this
manually are limited; technology plays a
fundamental role in taking data scouting to the
next level. One company striving to incorporate
innovative technology into its data scouting
solutions is BetConstruct. Its new product, AJNA,
uses a combination of augmented live video
streaming and artificial intelligence to produce
new standards of data collection and analysis.
Dmytro Fedyukov, head of data science at
BetConstruct, explains further: “This development
was all about collecting statistical information in
real-time using a combination of hardware and
software. Using quite simple cameras, we can
extract statistics data for all players on the field.”
The technology was built with three aims:
• To develop statistical information for teams and
coaches for tactical analysis
• To create augmented information and add more
information to live streams
• To collect individual statistics and create
additional opportunities in sports betting
VIGEN
BADALYAN
The founder and CEO
at BetConstruct has
dedicated 15 years to
the company.
DMYTRO
FEDYUKOV
has worked as the
head of data science
at BetConstruct for
the last year. He
has worked in data
intelligence, big data
and high performance
computing for 20 years
in the telco, gambling
and media domains.
INTEGRATING AI TECHNOLOGY
Fedyukov breaks down how the AI component
of AJNA works alongside the live streaming:
“We have several phases in our process. The
first is input stream processing, where we do
un-distortion, remaps, stitching, rotates for video
frames, and identify scheme and field corner
coordinates. In other words we automatically
define full-field geometry from the video stream.
“In the next phase, we use the player detection
module to track players, dividing all people on
the game field into team and referee categories.
With this data we are able to track in a robust
way and store personal tracks as geo-spatial event
logs for each player. On top of that, we run event
detection models that allow us to extract game-
semantic information such as goal likelihood.”
With these increased capabilities come new
opportunities for sports betting verticals. The
tracker then takes this information and collects
the statistical data, which can be used to predict
various metrics such as who has the ball at which
point, whereabouts on the field they are and
where other players are in relation to them. The
technology can predict goal likelihood in real-time.
The combination of AI and live streaming offers
extended personal tracking like player speed or
distance run per game, which can be converted
into a number of new markets to bet on.
Of the product, Vigen Badalyan, CEO of
BetConstruct says: “BetConstruct is about
providing viability and convenience. We come up
with creative and enlightening solutions such as
the AJNA live tracking device which serves as a
third eye on the gaming field, seeing way more
than the eyes of a scout.”
Currently, AJNA provides full live on-field
coverage of football, with a view to extending this
to more sports in the future.
COMPANY PROFILE
•NAME BETCONSTRUCT •FOUNDED 2003 •SECTOR SPORTS BETTING
•WEBSITE BETCONSTRUCT.COM •TWITTER @BETCONSTRUCT
JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2019 • ISSUE 114 • 45