Analytics, machine learning predict World Cup scores - ITWeb Africa

South African-based data scientists at Principa are at it again; this time using predictive analytics and machine learning to foretell the results of the 2018 Football World Cup. The 2018 FIFA World Cup kicks off tomorrow in Russia with the host nation taking on Saudi Arabia in Group A. Principa has already predicted the results for all the first games in the first round of matches. The company's data scientists use different algorithms to develop models that can predict the outcome of the matches. Principa notes that as the objective of machine learning is to develop models that can retrain themselves to adapt when exposed to new data, the algorithms will be re-trained with the results of each match to improve the accuracy of the following round's generated prediction. It points out that the purpose is to see how well different predictive analytics techniques used successfully in other areas can outperform the best human-made predictions.