Betfair’s 2021 Euro & Copa América Datathon

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Betfair

Do you think you have what it takes to predict the outcome of every match of the 2021 Euro and Copa America football tournaments? 

Betfair is giving you the chance to show off your data modelling skills by building a predictive model for this year’s Euro and Copa America football tournaments! 

With over $15,000 in prizes up for grabs, we’re challenging you to use your modelling skills to your advantage, be that by building your first predictive sports model, improving on an existing design or have a go something different by adapting your data skills from other fields. 

This year’s Euro and Copa America tournaments will be running simultaneously throughout June and July, presenting a perfect opportunity for keen sports and data enthusiasts to get involved and put your skills to the test against the masses in order to compete for both cash prizes and ultimate glory!

Submissions close at 11:59pm AEST on Friday June 11th – time to get modelling! 

NOTE – If struggling to access data after filling in the form, please ensure pop-ups are allowed.

Please direct all questions and submissions to datathon@betfair.com.au. 

PrizesRulesJudging and Submissions

Over $15,000 in prize money is up for grabs! 

See the list below for the prize money each placing at the end of the competition will receive: 

1st place – $5,000 

2nd place – $3,000 

3rd place – $2,000 

4th to 5th places – $1,000 

6th to 10th places – $500 

11th to 15th places – $200 

Prizewinners will be announced and all prizes will be distributed at the conclusion of the tournament via bank transfer (upon receiving bank account details from eligible prize-winners). 

The 2021 Euro and Copa America Datathon will see entrants provided with a bespoke set of historic soccer form and Betfair pricing data covering major international tournaments dating back to 2014 as well as a selection of relevant international friendly matches. 

The goal from there is to use the provided data (or any other data) to build your own model to predict the outcome of every possible match-up in both the Euro and the Copa America. 

How you go about building the model is entirely up to you – do you want to build an Elo model, a regression-based model, a Machine Learning algorithm, or something entirely different? Get as innovative with it as you want! 

Your set of predictions will be due before the two tournaments kick off – all submissions must be emailed to datathon@betfair.com.au before 11:59 pm AEST Friday, June 11th, 2021. 

See the Submissions & Judging tab as well as the Terms and Conditions for full competition rules. 

Please name submission files using the following formatting: 

  • {model_name}_submission_file_euro.csv; and
  • {model_name}_submission_file_copa_america.csv

To submit your model entry, please send it through to datathon@betfair.com.au.

The Datathon will be judged using the log loss method (cross entropy). The winner will be the Competition Entrant with the lowest mean (average) log loss over all matches that actually take place throughout the two tournaments (51 in the Euro and 28 in the Copa America). 

Two submission file templates will be provided to Competition Entrants along with the data sets upon registration – one for each of the Euro and the Copa America. Submissions must follow the template set out in the two submission file templates provided and must be submitted in a csv format. 

For the group stage of each tournament, Competition Entrants will be required to submit probabilities of a win, draw or loss for a given team in each scheduled match (36 for the Euro, 20 for the Copa America).

Additionally, Competition Entrants will be required to submit probabilities of a win or loss (no draws) for a given team in every possible match-up that could occur within the knockout stages of each tournament (i.e. the 276 possible combinations of teams who could play off head-to-head in the Euro knockout stages and the 45 combinations of teams who could play off in the Copa America knockout stages). 

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T&Cs

Full terms and conditions can be found here.