Wins & losses
A win can make a poor decision look sensible. A loss can make another bet feel necessary. These are common ways the last result changes how the next decision feels.
Thinking winning means you made a good decision.
You can make a terrible bet and win, or a well-reasoned bet and lose. Judge the decision using what you knew before the result.
Say you bet money you need for a bill. The bet wins, so you can pay it. That can make taking the risk feel sensible. But the money you stood to lose, and what losing it would have meant, were the same before you knew the result.
It can also make a reasonable prediction look foolish. An unexpected bounce doesn’t mean everything you knew about the game was wrong.
More on this mistakeConfusing a streak with skill.
A run of winning bets is real. The explanation for it may still be uncertain.
After a good few weeks, it’s natural to feel that something has clicked. Maybe your analysis improved. Maybe results happened to go your way. The account balance alone doesn’t separate those explanations.
How much a record tells you depends on the number of bets, their odds and stakes, and whether you’re counting all of them. Ten long-shot wins and ten short-priced wins mean different things. Several bets on the same outcome aren’t separate tests of your skill.
More on this mistakeBelieving you’re due.
Losing five bets doesn’t make the sixth more likely to win.
A fair coin still has a 50% chance of landing heads after five tails. It doesn’t need to balance the earlier results by producing a head next.
The same principle applies to independent random outcomes. A long run of losses can feel unusual without changing the next chance.
More on this mistakeChasing losses.
“I need to win $100 back” is information about you, not about whether the next bet is any good.
After losing a few $25 bets, a $100 bet starts to look like a way to get even. The amount comes from what you want to recover. You might also switch to games you hadn’t planned to follow because they’re the next ones available.
Sometimes that next bet wins. That’s part of why chasing can be convincing: you may have done it before and ended the night relieved.
More on this mistakeSeeing patterns in randomness.
A convincing explanation after a result isn’t the same as a prediction that worked beforehand.
Look through enough player statistics and you’ll find streaks: the last five away games, games on Tuesdays, games after a loss. Some patterns have a real explanation. Others appear because there are so many possible patterns to look for.
It’s especially easy to invent a story once you know what happened. A player scored because they were “due,” or didn’t score because the defense “had them figured out.” Either result can be made to sound inevitable.
More on this mistakeIgnoring the price.
“Who will win?” and “Is this a good bet?” are different questions.
The favorite can be very likely to win and still be a poor deal at the payout offered. Picking the winner isn’t enough if the wins pay too little to cover the losses.
Imagine a bet with a true 80% chance of winning. You risk $10 to make $1 in profit.
More on this mistakeThinking enough research eliminates risk.
More information can improve a prediction. It can’t make an uncertain outcome certain.
You can know the lineups, injuries, matchups, and weather and still lose to an unexpected bounce. Research changes what you know. It doesn’t control the game.
There’s also a difference between understanding a sport and finding information that the price hasn’t already accounted for. Public injury news is available to other people setting and taking the odds.
More on this mistakeIf this is getting difficult
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