These are problems that regularly crop up in business decision making, too. Those who understand when it is worth ignoring their human instincts to take a risk are likely to do better, says Heuer.

Steve Begg, professor of decision-making and risk analysis at the University of Adelaide in Australia, normally spends his time modelling how uncertainty can impact the oil and gas industry. He too has applied this financial markets-modelling work to predicting the outcome of the World Cup.

Using a technique known as a ‘Monte Carlo simulation’, which was initially developed by scientists working on the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project, to calculate how the form of each team might change during the tournament. He ran 100,000 simulations of possible outcomes in the forthcoming 63 matches of the tournament.

“Uncertainty is crucial in predicting the chance of an oil or gas field being economic,” says Begg. “In the World Cup, it determines the many ways the whole tournament might play out. Probability is subjective, it depends on what you know. It doesn’t need data – you use what information you have to assign a degree of belief in what might happen, and thus make decisions or, in this case, a judgement on who wins. The crucial thing is that your information and reasoning is not biased.”

This is something Bolliger insists is important too – emotion, no matter how much you want your national side to win, has to be taken out of the equation.

“Investors can learn a lot from the qualities of successful soccer players,” says Bolliger, who ran his simulations during late night shifts at work. “Agility, balance and calm are all things I will try to use in my interactions with clients.”

And the winners of the 2018 World Cup, according to some of the most powerful forecasting tools in the business world? According to UBS, Germany will be the winners, while Beggs predicts that Brazil have the best chance of being champions.

But for those wanting to take a gamble on the winners of the World Cup, there might be another option alternative to popping to the bookies. One study published in 2007 found that a country’s stock market can respond both positively and negatively to World Cup results, perhaps driven by changes in investor sentiment or mood. The researchers from the Norwegian School of Management found stock prices could slide by up to 49 points the day after a national team lost at the World Cup.

Of course, you could just take a day off and enjoy the football.

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