Betting on sports is always a fun and exciting activity but like any other form of gambling, it could come with risks. These risks can still be avoided as long as you remain logical with your betting decisions. However, when it comes to making decisions, it’s human nature to go for easy and efficient ones right away. This is why cognitive biases can play a huge role in the bets that you will place next.
Cognitive bias can start from the moment that you look for a gambling site where you can place a bet. For beginners, the most likely thing that they will do when it comes to this is to do a quick search on what the best betting site is. Bias happens if the person usually relies on the top results that appear on their screen. They tend to no longer check on the betting site, which is something that you should not do as a punter.
The best thing to do is to do a bit of research on which betting site will suit your needs. You can do this by visiting sites like TheTopBookies – honest betting reviews and cricket predictions. Always keep in mind that what may be best for others may not be best for you too.
The thing about combatting cognitive bias is that you will need to remind yourself a lot about its existence and that you can only get rid of it by doing more research or looking at what you’re presented with an outside perspective. Now, as someone who wants to improve their betting skills, you need to first know about what type of biases or fallacies out there could affect your bets. Here are some of them.
The Gambler’s Fallacy
This type of cognitive bias is commonly seen in gamblers but it’s not exclusive to gambling. The gambler’s fallacy is a type of phenomenon wherein a person believes that if something happens more frequently than usual, it will happen less frequently in the future.
This is also known as the Monte Carlo Fallacy because this phenomenon was first observed at a Monte Carlo Casino in 1913 where a group of people has been playing a game of roulette. During that time, the ball fell on black 26 times in a row and this never really happens.
The probability of this happening is only once out of 136.8 million chances. Because of this, the bettors that night felt confident that the ball will fall red next because of how frequently it has been falling on black. On the 27th time when the ball finally fell on red, people have already lost so much money.
In sports betting, this could happen if you start to have the “I’m due to win”. As soon as you think of betting this way, your next bet is no longer logical and is only based on the previous results of your bets which are all independent from each other.
Recency Bias
This may sound like it’s similar to the gambler’s fallacy because this type of bias relies on recent events. However, recency bias in sports betting is different. This happens when you have the urge to bet on a team just because they did great on the most recent match that they participated in.
This most recent match that they did well may have created a huge impact because they’ve been losing a lot before that. Recency bias makes you ignore the other matches they’ve ever been in because you’re thinking that they are finally in their game and will be winning more in the future.
The Affect Heuristic or Emotional Bias
Having an emotional bias is common to a lot of sports punters especially if they are die-hard sports fans. What happens here is that the bets they place are based on their emotions instead of logical reasons. If you are betting with emotional bias, you’re placing bets on your favorite teams even if statistics are telling you that their chances are not that great.
When you’re a fan of an athlete or a certain team, it’s easy to be blinded by their greatness. There are hardcore fans who would only focus on the great things that a team did during a match and miss the opportunities that the players have. This is why betting on their favorites hardly feels wrong even if stats are saying otherwise.
Conclusion
These are just the most common biases and fallacies that sports punters easily fall into. Sure, from time to time, punters may want to only rely on luck and divulge these biases. However, if you’re serious about sports betting and you’re after making profits, these are things that you should be able to identify.
It’s important to acknowledge that the bias is there so that you can condition your mind to combat them. The best that you can do is to always do your research and keep an open mind. Always place your bets based on statistics and logic. Avoid betting based on a hunch or your feelings.