Case Study: University of Adelaide models 2018 FIFA World Cup probability outcomes with Palisade's @RISK

University of Adelaide - Customer Case Study

The University of Adelaide engaged Palisade's @RISK to address a forecasting challenge: how to propagate uncertainty in teams’ playing ability through the complex 2018 FIFA World Cup structure to estimate probabilities of advancing and winning. Dr. Steve Begg needed a way to combine known tournament rules with uncertain “tournament form” and match-level randomness to produce defensible probability estimates across millions of possible outcomes.

Using Palisade’s @RISK, Begg built a Monte Carlo model (100,000 simulations) that used PERT and truncated-normal distributions and discrete goal PDFs to simulate match and tournament outcomes in about five minutes on a laptop. The model produced measurable insights — Brazil led with a 15.4% chance to win (Germany 13.32%), Russia had a 10.9% chance to reach the quarterfinals, the model reproduced Russia’s 5–0 opening score 91 times, and only Germany and Poland of the model’s top 10 failed to reach the Round of 16 — with one million runs showing no significant difference from the 100,000-run results.

University of Adelaide

Steve Begg

University of Adelaide