Hubris in Sports Betting

The Gambler’s Toolkit

If my life were a movie, I would be the hero. As such, I am extremely adept at fooling myself into believing that I am an expert at pretty much everything. I see a stand-up comic and think ‘I’m funnier than him; I could be a great comedian if I had the time’. The striker misses a one-on-one: I would have scored that. And of course, any woman who is nice to me is obviously flirting.

Human beings really suck at accurately appraising ourselves. We are masters of self-deception; if there is an opportunity to either under-estimate or over-estimate our ability at anything, we are pre-disposed towards over-estimation. We protect ourselves from the truth by creating plausible, but misguided, narratives internally. When things go in our favour, it is because of our expertise. When things go against us, it is because we got unlucky.

It is precisely this psychological illusion that makes most gamblers unwilling to accept that they lose money. Here’s a tip: if you ask anyone how successful they are as a punter and they reply ‘I think I’m around break-even. Maybe a small winner’, you can be pretty sure that they are oblivious or dismissive to the fact that they are losing money.

All gamblers are favourites to be unprofitable, but the gambler who is blind to their shortcomings is a near-lock to lose cash. Bookies make their money from the casual punter who watches a fair bit of Sky Sports, frequents some messageboards and blogs, and over-estimates their ability to beat the market. To (mis)quote Alexander Pope: ‘a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing’, and I’m pretty sure he was referring to football betting at the time.

Perhaps the worst possible outcome for the semi-serious sports gambler is to go on a hot streak (more on this in future articles). OK, this can’t be a negative in immediate terms; a hot streak suggests profit, which is always nice. However, in terms of the long game, there are some serious hazards that can befall the bettor on a good run.

Variance is an inevitable part of gambling. It is a dead cert that some good bets will falter in unfortunate circumstances. Similarly, poor wagers will sometimes be rewarded. That’s life.

However, the danger stems from their perceptions of the reasons behind the hot streak. It is extremely likely that the role of variance will be downplayed, and the bettor will over-estimate their expertise. The dangers of thinking ‘I’ve cracked it!’ can scarcely be overstated.

The resulting hubris encourages the bettor to place unwarranted confidence in their prediction skills. As this happens, predictions become more and more outlandish; the bettor starts to place undue trust in their ‘sixth sense’ that in reality was nothing more than some positive variance.

When the individual starts to think of themselves as an expert in their field, they can become inclined to go against the popular opinion as a default stance. The more extravagant the prediction, the greater the glory (and subsequent brag) if it comes in. The desire to look smart can supersede the desire to make good decisions, which is a recipe for disaster. As such, the inclination to make ‘smart’ bets diminishes; it seems a bit of a waste of their supernatural gambling instincts to take a safe bet.

It does not take much by way of positive variance to convince the average punter that they have developed ‘the knack’. Do not become too emboldened by a nice run. The bettor who starts to believe their own hype would do well to remember the old adage that pride comes before a fall.