SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
AI and automation are revolutionising many industries, including esports betting.
While many have come far, some key elements of esports make it ripe for automation. Esports matches are played on servers, meaning very rich data can be collected and delivered with incredibly low latency and high accuracy.
Taking advantage of the digital nature of esports and complex mathematical modelling, Abios’ Co-Founder and Managing Director Anton Janér explains how the firm marries data science and esports in powering an odds feed that carries its own against the very best.
SBC News: What data is needed to create a strong esports odds offering?
Anton Janér: Reliable and fast data feeds are paramount to power competitive live odds feeds. Abios works with official data providers for esports titles LoL, Dota 2, CS2, VALORANT and more, ensuring our odds models can run on the lowest-latency data for top esports competitions.
Accessing data directly from game servers is crucial for automating the pricing process. The models correspond to changes and new events on a millisecond’s notice, allowing us to confidently keep our live markets open for a long time. It also powers features many talk about, but few can implement efficiently, including instant markets and bet builders featuring player props.
Abios’s background in data also means we have a highly efficient data platform with years of historical data from which to extract knowledge and run vast analytics queries.
SBC: What role does Abios’ heritage in data play in integrating these data feeds?
AJ: One of the advantages Abios has when it comes to integrating external data feeds is our long experience handling vast amounts of data from different sources. This has enabled us to build a robust, proprietary data infrastructure capable of mapping and monitoring several external data sources efficiently.
Abios processes the data through various systems depending on the products the feeds are intended to supply. Abios REST API is connected to a comprehensive database from which our other products can fetch data, whether our esports widgets, data or odds feeds.
The esports-centric data infrastructure provides several advantages for partners. With a title-agnostic ecosystem, all data is structured the same across all esports titles, providers and tournaments.
This simplifies integration processes for partners, as only one integration and ID mapping is required to access an odds feed running on data from several providers for essentially all tier 1 esports in titles CS2, LoL, Dota 2, and VALORANT.
With the ability to customise graphical assets and toggle on and off tournaments, titles, and feeds, partners also have access to the toolkit necessary to differentiate from the competition and deliver a localised user experience.
SBC: What is unique about Abios’ odds-setting process, and how does it take full advantage of the digital nature of esports?
AJ: In sports, traders have traditionally been at the centre of the odds-setting process for matches across all tiers of play. While highly specialised for each sport or esports title, manual human trading comes with its own disadvantages. There’s always the risk of human error, and the human mind can only process a certain amount of data concurrently.
Manual trading also comes with its inherent limitations. Humans have a limited reaction time, meaning they can’t always keep markets open during crucial seconds in a match where price-altering events occur. These factors mean uptime has a hard set of limitations during manual trading and bet delays.
In esports, automated models can run on real-time server data, which opens up an entirely new playing field.
What makes esports data unique in contrast to sports data is that every match in esports is played on a server. The server records events and actions taken by players at a granularity several orders of magnitude higher than what is currently possible in traditional sports. When utilising esports data from official sources, Abios can tap into this event feed, essentially getting the same data.
This is where the real magic sets in. Abios uses automated odds setting and mathematical models overseen by expert esports traders. As the models run on rich real-time data coming from servers, a much larger set of odds can be updated faster than what is possible with manual trading. This proves a large differentiator, as it allows us to confidently keep our markets open for a long time in a match while increasing market efficiency and minimising bet delays.
The richness, refresh rates, and data speeds available in esports are unprecedented for regular sports. By utilising automated odds setting, Abios takes full advantage of the fastest data sources available to create odds solutions only possible for esports.
SBC: How do you envision the future of esports betting in coming years?
AJ: I can only speak for Abios. For us, it has largely been about two things: bringing esports betting on par with the most engaging product features we see for traditional sports, such as bet builders and player propositions. And combining those two.
Next, having worked for over 11 years in esports, we have taken full advantage of the unique digitalisation aspects of esports present to create a fully title-agnostic odds solution that can compete with the very best operators while supplying dynamic elements to allow our partners to differentiate themselves from each other.
Finally, what we’re looking at now and what we have been successful with in the past is to innovate and create products that can move the needle in how esports is experienced. We have always believed that esports is very different from sports and comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages, but it also presents an opportunity to create a completely new product, paving the way for the next generation of online betting experiences.
