Starting points for implementing ML/AI into sports trading

[eightbo]

Can't help but feel a tad behind when I see videos like the below.

https://x.com/ArchiveExplorer/status/20 ... 4791854194

What would you guys recommend as a starting point for implementing ML/AI into my trading?

[Euler]

I think a lot of posts like this aren't true or realistic. Of course the buzzword is AI at the moment and everybody's using it in every form possible but none of the strategies I've developed over the last 20 years have involved using machine learning or AI.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't give it a try or that you shouldn't explore new areas and so on. I'm just a bit sceptical, given the level of focus on these things, that people are using it the way they claim they are.

IMO If you learn to use some of the latest tools, you can use them to gather and analyze data much faster than you ever could have done in the past. I think that's a really unexplored area for a lot of people. That's where you'll find a few edges.

[jamesedwards]

You don't sell something you believe makes 200% per week.

Ask them to share a longer term P&L and see what happens.

[eightbo]

...
IMO If you learn to use some of the latest tools, you can use them to gather and analyze data much faster than you ever could have done in the past. I think that's a really unexplored area for a lot of people. That's where you'll find a few edges.

Thanks Peter, that's of great help.

I recall seeing you mention somewhere you almost doubled a year-to-year profit somewhere and was just so curious! I'll assume this sort of thing this was a contributor.

Thanks so much for starting BA. 22 years at the forefront of the exchange, and transformed so many lives with your team/product over the years. So grateful.

[eightbo]

You don't sell something you believe makes 200% per week.

Ask them to share a longer term P&L and see what happens.

It's more highlighting a proof of concept (code converting stream into TPD-like data)

I presume a few are on GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 Sonnet paid models? Let me know if you guys have gotten on well with anything else or that presumption is incorrect

[ShaunWhite]

It's more highlighting a proof of concept (code converting stream into TPD-like data)

I presume a few are on GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 Sonnet paid models? Let me know if you guys have gotten on well with anything else or that presumption is incorrect

Doing pretty well but haven't touched it for about 6 months cos I haven't been well/been busy. Back on it soon.

But two key things, #1 data obviously, as much as possible, and #2 having a clear idea about what you want it to do. It's not going to find a stragegy for you, but it can help you refine one. And execution is a factor too, ie are you going to go fully auto incl retraining, through to just daily notes, depends how much time you want to put into it. I was quite well placed with years of tick data and a sim/trading system so that informed my choices.

AI will help get the code together and streamline your process, there'll be a lot of iterations so it's best to be slick, and then choose an ML. I'm on TFT modelling (google it) but there's several, DeepAR, N-BEATS, TiDE etc etc.

One small glitch is that non of the temporal forecasting models understand that more than one selection constitutes a 'race' and the overround, but you can work around it.

Model training can be slow, anything from 15mins for a short data history with a handful of parameters to a several days for a few years of data, 100s of model params and 20 or more iterations (epochs).

Live price inference speed can be an issue too depending on the parameter library, from about 80ms for a simple model to 3 or more seconds for a complex one, so that affects how you use it. If you'll looking for best performance then you could easily spend several hundred a month on AWS GPUs.

It's good though, makes a change and takes away a lot of the tedious analysis.

[Kai]

I presume a few are on GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 Sonnet paid models? Let me know if you guys have gotten on well with anything else or that presumption is incorrect

My quant partner swears by the ChatGPT Pro and it keeps impressing, we've been using it to good effect recently

The freebie stuff would lose coherence instantly, it's only good for queries like "will ice cream give me brain freeze"

[sniffer66]

I presume a few are on GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 Sonnet paid models? Let me know if you guys have gotten on well with anything else or that presumption is incorrect

My quant partner swears by the ChatGPT Pro and it keeps impressing, we've been using it to good effect recently

The freebie stuff would lose coherence instantly, it's only good for queries like "will ice cream give me brain freeze"

I still have this argument with GPT 5.5 on a regular basis , then have to go back and correct it's code constantly !

Screenshot 2026-06-19 174526.jpg

[ShaunWhite]

I still have this argument with GPT 5.5 on a regular basis , then have to go back and correct it's code constantly !


Screenshot 2026-06-19 174526.jpg

It'll often revert to 'price' being a price like a share price, where higher is indeed worse. '(decimal) odds' leaves it in no doubt what you're on about. Using 'price' requires it to remember the context.

[sniffer66]

I still have this argument with GPT 5.5 on a regular basis , then have to go back and correct it's code constantly !


Screenshot 2026-06-19 174526.jpg

It'll often revert to 'price' being a price like a share price, where higher is indeed worse. '(decimal) odds' leaves it in no doubt what you're on about. Using 'price' requires it to remember the context.

I'll try that Shaun. I've told it to remember a good few times but it still loses the memory between chats