I’m bad at sports betting so I made a Magic 8-Ball to recommend bets for me. For all the ink that has been spilled over how to lock in a sure-fire bet, the fact of the matter is that even the most successful sports bettors in the world only hit on 60% of their bets. When we can’t trust our gut and we can’t trust logic, we might as well outsource these decisions to machines and let the fates decide.
Here’s how it is intended to work: With an integrated vibration sensor, the device detects when a person is shaking the object and queries ChatGPT through an API Key with a prompt that asks ChatGPT to scour the daily betting markets and identify inefficiencies in the market that can be exploited. This takes into account betting markets, performance trends, opponent analysis, and similar game scenarios to identify one bet at a time. I was able to complete a prototype that surfaces a random bet, because I had trouble with OpenAI’s terms of service. With more experimentation with the prompt, I believe this would work as designed. My goal for this project was to immerse myself in AI tools so that I can begin to understand how they can be best integrated into devices.
Improvements:
I decided to add a Draftkings Sportsbook vinyl sticker to make the 8-ball look more legitimate. Going forward, I would probably use a more sensitive vibration switch because the medium-strength switch requires a very firm shake.
Video Storyboard
Timing is really important for this video to pick up views. I am going to film and post this during Sunday NFL Football and the video will be submitted before Dec 17th.
Sample Social Media Post to IG/Reddit:
“buddy cracked the code. magic 8-ball that tells you what bets to place @draftkings @houseofhighlights @barstoolsports”