Predictions & Scoring Rules

You may have seen that you can submit predictions, view other's predictions (and scores) and the leaderboard in CupBeat. A few screenshots:

Now, let's see how the scoring works in CupBeat...

Basics

The predictions you submit are for pre-penalty scores.

• If a game ends in regular time (typically shown as "FT" or "Full TIme" in soccer), the final score is what we will consider.
• If a game goes to Over-Time, or Extra-Time, and ends there (before going to penalties), then we will consider that score (typically shown as "AET", or "After Extra Time").
• If a game goes to penalties, we will consider the score at the end of AET. We will not consider the penalty goals in our calculations. For example, if a game is 2-2 AET and ends 5-4 (after penalties), we will consider 2-2 as the score your predictions will be scored on.

You can submit predictions up to the game's start time. After that, predictions get disabled and you can only see already submitted predictions.

Score Components

There are multiple ways you can earn scores in CupBeat:

Match result: 5 points

If the match's result (win/loss/draw) matches your prediction, you get 5 points.

If it does not match, you get 0 points for this component.

Goals scored by each team (0-3 points for each team)

If your predicted goals for a team exactly matches what they scored (again, pre-penalties), then you get 3-points. We decrease 1 point for every goal your prediction is off from the actual result.

So if the team scored 2 goals, you get:

• 3 points if you had predicted 2 goals exactly.
• 2 points if you had predicted 1 goal or 3 goals (you are off by one goal).
• 1 points if you had predicted 0 goals or 4 goals (you are off by two goal).
• 0 points if your prediction is not within 2 goals of the actual score.
• There are no negative points. The least you can make is 0 points and the max is 3 points.

Then we repeat this for the other team, just as we did for the first team.

Bonus: Exact match result and goals: 3 points

If your scores match exactly for both teams (that is, you have maximized the above points, up to 11 points = 5 + 3 + 3) you get a bonus 3 points!

Multiplier for progressive rounds

We then sum up all the above points. This is your base score for the game.

Then, based on the round (that is, importance) of the game, we apply a multiplier. The multipliers are:

So, if your base score was 11 points and it was the Semi-Finals, your final score for the game will be 44 points (with the 4x multiplier).

Example

Let's take this example and walk-through the scoring. We have the following predictions for the Ghana - Uruguay game from the group-stage. The actual result was a 0 - 2 win for URU, which is Player D's exact prediction.

Player A's score: 9 points (Prediction: 1 - 3)

Player B's score: 4 points (Prediction: 2 - 2)

Player C's score: 3 points (Prediction: 2 - 1)

Player D's score: 14 points (Prediction: 0 - 2)

This is a system I am trying out after playing with various prediction algorithms. Let's see how this goes!

If you have ideas, or feedback, reach out to me. May the best team, and the best predictions win!