But… it didn’t quite work out that way.

After months of experimenting, testing prompts, and sometimes even arguing with ChatGPT, I discovered five lessons that completely changed how I use AI.

Whether you’re using AI to check your daily football picks or to build full betting systems, these lessons will save you hours of frustration and wasted effort.

👋 A Quick Introduction

Hi, my name’s Malcolm, and I’ve been creating software and systems for the betting market for over 20 years.

Over the last few years, AI has become a big part of my day-to-day work — not just for coding or writing, but also for finding and analysing sports bets.

If you’d like to try out my daily football tips, simply:
👉  Click here

⚙️ Lesson 1 — Get the Prompt Right (Priming the AI)

The first thing I learned is this: AI isn’t a mind reader.

If you just type something like “Find me some good football bets today,” you’ll get nonsense.

You have to prime it — tell it who it’s supposed to be before you ask what you want.

“You are a football statistics expert who specialises in Both Teams To Score and Over 2.5 Goals markets.
Analyse today’s matches and find games that fit the following rules…”

That tiny change makes a massive difference. Once AI knows its role, it gives you focused answers — not random guesses.

✅ Lesson 1: Always tell AI who it should be before asking what you want.

🎯 Lesson 2 — Be Specific: Boundaries Matter

Once I’d fixed my prompts, I realised I was still being too vague. AI performs best when you box it in — give it boundaries.

Specify markets, leagues, time ranges, and the exact stats you care about.

“Find 5 matches today in the top 10 European leagues where both teams average 1.5 or more goals scored per game and concede at least one.”

That’s crystal clear — AI knows exactly what to look for.

If you just say “Find high-scoring matches,” AI doesn’t know what that means. To you, “high-scoring” might mean 4+ goals. To AI, it could mean anything over 2.5.

Think of it like adding filters:

• “Do not include any reserve matches.”
• “Exclude Under-21 or youth games.”

✅ Lesson 2: The clearer the instruction, the better the output.

🤝 Lesson 3 — Feed It Matches vs Let It Find Its Own

This one completely changed my approach.

At first, I let AI find its own matches:

“Find 5 games today that fit my Over 2.5 Goals criteria.”

Sure, it worked — but sometimes it gave me obscure leagues, postponed fixtures, or even yesterday’s games.

So I flipped it around. I started choosing the matches myself, using sources I trust or games I was already tracking. Then I’d ask AI to analyse those matches and highlight:

• The best one
• The top three
• Or the top five

This hybrid method worked far better. I even cover it in my AI course (link in the description if you’re watching the video).

When you sign up for my 1-a-day football tip, you actually get both:

1. A hand-picked selection I’ve personally fed into AI
2. A second set of completely AI-generated matches

✅ Lesson 3: Use AI in partnership — not instead of you.

🧩 Lesson 4 — Teach AI Your Style

Here’s where it gets interesting. AI can actually learn your betting style — without any coding.

“I prefer games where both teams attack but rarely keep clean sheets.”

It starts to understand your logic. You can even paste examples of your past winning picks and say:

“These are the kinds of matches I like. Find me similar ones today.”

Every time you do this, the AI gets better at predicting what you’ll like.

Think of it like training a digital assistant who understands your preferences. We all have our favourites — leagues we trust, teams we follow, match types we enjoy betting on.

Feed that back into the AI:

• Save successful picks to a file.
• Tell AI, “I like matches like these.”
• Let it learn your tone, reasoning, and past logic.

✅ Lesson 4: Teach AI your style — and it will start mirroring your thought process.

📊 Lesson 5 — Control the Output

This is something most people forget — you can (and should) tell AI how to format the results you want.

You can even request specific statistics or a structured layout. For example:

“Present the output in a table with the following columns:
Time | Match | League | Country | BTTS % | Notes”

By showing it an example of the format you want, you make it almost impossible for AI to misinterpret you.

✅ Lesson 5: Always show AI how you want the final output to look.

🏁 Final Thoughts

Let’s quickly recap the five lessons I’ve learned from using AI to find football matches:

1. Prime your prompt.
2. Be specific.
3. Use AI as both scout and analyst.
4. Teach it your style.
5. Show it the output format.

AI won’t make you rich overnight — but it will make your research faster, smarter, and more consistent. And honestly? It’s fun. It feels like having a digital teammate who never sleeps.

If you’d like to get my daily football picks, just click here: https://bluebell.lpages.co/dftip/

Good luck with your next picks! ⚽💡