The 'Predictopus' of cricket world cup

If online game is a passion for the people, prediction is simply an addiction, as we have seen in the World Cup Football, where Paul the octopus, now dead, became a super star with his predictions.

In an effort to make hay while the cricket sun shines, Yahoo has introduced a new online betting game called Predictopus.

According to Rajeev Rastogi — head, Yahoo Labs, Bangalore, Predictopus is a product where science meets consumers. In a brief interaction with CIOL, he sheds light on the game.

CIOL: Predictopus. The name itself is self explanatory. However, can you please explain the concept behind the game?

Rajeev: This is a product where science meets consumers. It is one-of-its-kind of betting game, actually the most complex algorithm of its kind, which has been created by Yahoo! Labs to drive consumer engagement. So on-field action is now matched by online action among cricket aficionados!

Predictopus takes the wisdom of crowds to the extreme by allowing users to predict almost anything about the ICC Cricket World Cup, like whether India will advance further than both Sri Lanka and Pakistan, or whether a team will win that has never won before.

You can compose any of millions of predictions and sell them any time for virtual points, even in the middle of a match, just like the stock market. Predictopus then computes what all these different predictions, taken together, say about the likelihood of each of the billions of possible ways the tournament could unfold.

It is an example of what is technically called a combinatorial prediction market, a new kind of market made possible only now because computing power has increased so massively.

Computing prices exactly in a combinatorial market is infeasible (it could take more time than the age of the universe even on the speediest processor), so we employ importance sampling to approximate the prices. We built the first version during an internal Yahoo! Hack Day. Finally, we leveraged the Yahoo! Application Platform to quickly build a public version of the game.

How is the game played online?

Each user starts with a set of “virtual points” that they can use to play with. Users are presented with choices of various kinds of predictions they can make. Once they choose a prediction, e.g “India will finish first in their group” or “Pakistan will advance further than Australia” or simply “India will win cup”, the system then calculates the odds of that bet coming true. They can then use some of their points to make a bet on that prediction.

The odds of their bet will keep on changing until the actual outcome is known. The user can at any time “sell” their bet to redeem points to use on other bets. The system maintains a Leaderboard of users who have the maximum balance of points. Users can also invite their friends to form a group and hence compete against each other.

What was the role of Yahoo India in this venture?

Bringing Predictopus to life has been a truly interdisciplinary and global effort led by Yahoo! India with the help from Yahoo! Labs scientists and engineers in India and the US.

What is the revenue model for the game?

There is no direct revenue generated from the game. However, games like this lead to deeper user-engagement, which in turn has an impact on overall economics.

How will it help Yahoo in the financial front?

The game is very engaging and we have found that a lot of users are hooked and like to make a lot of bets. They also like to compete with their friends. This increase in user engagement leads to increase in advertisement revenue for Yahoo.

Do you think such betting games will affect the moral fabric of the society?

No, we don’t think so. There is no actual financial transaction involved with users. Users play to win “virtual points” The real goal of the game is to create user involvement and excitement around Cricket World Cup.