{"title":"In-game soccer outcome prediction with offline reinforcement learning","authors":"Pegah Rahimian, Balazs Mark Mihalyi, Laszlo Toka","doi":"10.1007/s10994-024-06611-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Predicting outcomes in soccer is crucial for various stakeholders, including teams, leagues, bettors, the betting industry, media, and fans. With advancements in computer vision, player tracking data has become abundant, leading to the development of sophisticated soccer analytics models. However, existing models often rely solely on spatiotemporal features derived from player tracking data, which may not fully capture the complexities of in-game dynamics. In this paper, we present an end-to-end system that leverages raw event and tracking data to predict both offensive and defensive actions, along with the optimal decision for each game scenario, based solely on historical game data. Our model incorporates the effectiveness of these actions to accurately predict win probabilities at every minute of the game. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, achieving an accuracy of 87% in predicting offensive and defensive actions. Furthermore, our in-game outcome prediction model exhibits an error rate of 0.1, outperforming counterpart models and bookmakers’ odds.</p>","PeriodicalId":49900,"journal":{"name":"Machine Learning","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Machine Learning","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10994-024-06611-1","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Predicting outcomes in soccer is crucial for various stakeholders, including teams, leagues, bettors, the betting industry, media, and fans. With advancements in computer vision, player tracking data has become abundant, leading to the development of sophisticated soccer analytics models. However, existing models often rely solely on spatiotemporal features derived from player tracking data, which may not fully capture the complexities of in-game dynamics. In this paper, we present an end-to-end system that leverages raw event and tracking data to predict both offensive and defensive actions, along with the optimal decision for each game scenario, based solely on historical game data. Our model incorporates the effectiveness of these actions to accurately predict win probabilities at every minute of the game. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, achieving an accuracy of 87% in predicting offensive and defensive actions. Furthermore, our in-game outcome prediction model exhibits an error rate of 0.1, outperforming counterpart models and bookmakers’ odds.
期刊介绍:
Machine Learning serves as a global platform dedicated to computational approaches in learning. The journal reports substantial findings on diverse learning methods applied to various problems, offering support through empirical studies, theoretical analysis, or connections to psychological phenomena. It demonstrates the application of learning methods to solve significant problems and aims to enhance the conduct of machine learning research with a focus on verifiable and replicable evidence in published papers.