In what has mind-boggling ramifications for the future, researchers can now predict who'll win DOTA 2 matches

Imagine being able to predict the future with an 85 percent accuracy rate.

Now think of the possibilities.

Suddenly, winning LottoMax and cashing out to your own private island in the Bahamas doesn’t seem about as likely to happen as hopping on Tinder and discovering profiles for a riotously thirsty Sonoya Mizuno and a screamingly horny Adam Driver.

You would have had the foresight in 1998 to bet the family farm on eSports back when Tencent was just a glimmer in the eye of Pony Ma.

And, having seen COVID-19 coming last August, you’d currently be reading this from a remote cabin in the deep woods somewhere outside of 100 Mile House, rather than from lockdown in your 390-square-foot Yaletown condo.

Normally, predicting the future is something that only crystal ball owners and Ouji boards are able to do.

That’s now changed.

Digital Creativity Lab, which operates out of the University of York in the U.K. has announced that one of its research teams has developed a impressively accurate prediction model for the wildly popular eSports game DOTA 2.

Using data from millions and millions of past DOTA 2 competitions, the DCL team is able to say, with 85 percent accuracy, who will win a match after five minutes of playtime.

It’s also able to predict game deaths five seconds before they happen, and make largely accurate guesses who will win a DOTA 2 match before they’ve even got underway.

Under the headline “Real-time prediction model marks a new frontier for esports”, Digital Creative Labs made the announcement on its website today. A research paper on the model was, however, released last November.

Considered by many to be one of the hardest eSports to master, DOTA 2 is played by millions daily across the planet.

In the introduction to its paper, the Digital Creative Team states: “In many esports, unlike traditional sports, there is no ‘score’. Furthermore, these games are highly complex and can be hard to follow for novice audiences. Therefore, simple statistics that summarize the current game state, such as a match win percentage, can broaden the appeal of the games and make them more accessible for viewers.”

Where things get interesting for the future is when researcher Dr. Victoria J. Hodge notes eSports games like Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive also have an endless amount of data to mine from past matches. That presumably will make predicting the future outcomes of matches possible.

And the 85 percent accuracy rate will no doubt catch the attention of the Nevada Gaming Commission. Over the past two weeks, Las Vegas has greenlighted betting on both the German and North American leagues for CS: GO.

As for where things will go in the future once York’s Digital Creative Team researchers have perfected predicting the future with eSports?

“We can start,” Hodge writes in her paper, “to apply our live prediction to human behavioral data in the real world.”

Which just might mean that, at some point in the future, you might win LottoMax and find yourself having Sunday breakfast in bed with Sonoya Mizuno or Adam Driver.

Dare to dream.