A virtual gambler developed by Australian computer researchers to predict the outcome of team sports has beaten human expert tipsters and could see bookies getting fleeced.
The computer eschews emotion to rely only on statistical data to pick winners, analysing factors such as a team's win-loss record, ranking and home ground record.
Alan McCabe of James Cook University, in Queensland, claims his virtual tipster 'MAIT' - McCabe's Artificially Intelligent Tipper - picked the winner in more than 80 per cent of matches in the 2000 Australian National Rugby League (NRL) competition.
MAIT - which Mr McCabe said could potentially be converted to cover other team sports such as soccer - was unveiled at a conference in Canberra last week.
The computer put four human tipsters to shame when it correctly predicted the winner in 151 of 182 NRL matches in the 2000 season.
By comparison, the most successful of the humans picked the correct result in only 120 matches.