[jxub]

>mess with play patterns and tendencies

Maybe you should get involved with Data Science, this field is all about playing with patterns (and hopefully finding a result), and even thinks like SVM's, random forests and genetic algorithms aren't really hard to grok and apply in that area.

There are some scientists involved with betting, but this field has really low profit margins IMHO. Personally, I view algorithmic trading as more interesting but YMMV.