Spot the Ball

Interactive, fun and not too complicated. Really liked this idea

Are you just calculating how close my guess is to the most densely clicked spot even if the ball is not actually in that spot?

Like, does countries who adore football, score higher.

Do IPs who regularly read NY Times sports section score better?

Or people who actually seen the game on TV, do they score better?

As a developer it can be quite humbling to realise how many seemingly tiny yet actually really important touches exist in a project you think you know inside out.

Following the direction players are looking is just one parameter and can be wildly inaccurate without any information on the angle and velocity of the ball at the time of the shot. One of the trickiest situations is when 2 players jump for the ball, usually coming from a goalkeeper's clearance, so high and fairly fast, and collide in the air (often closing their eyes): the ball could literally be anywhere.

That's kind of the genius of puzzles like these (we can't take credit for inventing it - Spot the Ball has existed for a long time in the analog world) is that it's a mix of skill and luck, so you can fool yourself into thinking you're amazing at it, when in reality the next photo might trip you up completely.

following the eyeline of players (and sometimes background observers) is the most basic clue, but it's also important to remember that in soccer you're not allowed to touch the ball with your arms or hands if you can possibly avoid it, so when you see a player's stiffened arm you can often guess that they're fighting to avoid an accidental contact that would result in play being interrupted by the referee.

It's not a very useful skill but I hope that soccer gets much more popular in the US as I might be able to win some easy prize money if spot-the-ball competitions become popular. Or for a small fee, I will be happy to provide individual tuition in this potentially lucrative derivative sport :)

This was a great link...I've been casually brainstorming heuristics for detecting possible Photoshopping and John writes about exactly that. I'm going to walk through his algorithm using Python and PIL.

I assume the players look where they are going, and at other people instead of the ball (since they can predict the trajectory they probably look where it will interact with something, not where it is.).

Of course you can really gamble in the UK - that's what the bookies are for.

However, the regulations are a lot tighter for gambling, so it's easier to make it a "skill based game" which has much looser rules. Bingo and raffles have their own rules which, again, are a lot easier to comply with.