How being wrong can make you a better punter?

We spend a decent part of our lives trying to figure out what’s wrong & what’s right. As you might already know, it is not that easy to do, especially when it comes to betting. Just think about it, what does it mean to be right or wrong when betting? Does the winning wager mean you were right or vice versa? What would you say if someone told you that you were right while losing the bet?

Let us tell you something before you try to answer any of those questions. Sports, and especially betting on sports, involves a large share of luck and randomness. Thus, keeping in mind the fact that events you bet on are not 100% predictable could help you along the way.

Predictability of sports disciplines

Acknowledging the role of luck is one of the fundamental aspects of betting on sports. We are not trying to say that every single bet you place or will place in the future will be affected by randomness, but simply factoring that into your calculations would save you tons of money, nerves, and effort. What is more, it is quite important to have an idea about the share of luck involved in your betting before making any estimations about how good you actually are.

While it might seem not very important, the understanding of randomness or actually its misunderstanding can have severe effects on your long-term betting. Discarding the role of luck when analysing your betting skills usually leads to an overestimation of your abilities and, thus, higher staking or less thought-through decisions. What’s next is quite obvious, right?

This is where «being wrong» can actually help you. The first step you have to take towards getting better as a punter is learning to admit you are being wrong. It could be difficult to develop such a habit, but trust us, there is no bigger favour you can do yourself than figuring out how to accept being wrong. The problem here is that everybody wants to be right, however, simply being wrong less is the best way to do it. Once you start admitting your mistakes, you will start being aware of them. This will subsequently force you to take some measures to fix it, thus, will help avoid unnecessary losses. Cutting down on losses will help you save more, and by having more, you are simply more likely to make more.

Most common mistakes committed by punters

Regardless of how good you are, or think you are, you ARE going to make mistakes at some point. There is statistically no possible way of not making a mistake in sports betting at all. The best punters in the world lose more than 40% of a time on average. It is very important to know this, losing does not always mean you are wrong, but if you are losing around half of the time, there must be something wrong with it.

Once you break the barrier of accepting that mistakes are inevitable, changes will start taking place. The point of developing a skill of accepting your own mistakes is to draw your attention to the reasons behind those mistakes. Once you start seeing that something is wrong and that you are able to control it in a certain way, you will intuitively try to dig into it.

Analyzing your betting can show you a lot of areas you need to work on. It could be the way you input the data into your calculations, it could your betting model, or it could be the bias that are affecting your decision-making. It could be practically anything, and the only way to find that out is to give it some time and effort.

Sometimes all it will take is just a minor adjustment to turn things the way around, however, it could also take a completely different approach to fix your mistakes. When it comes to betting, there is the only way to fix something that is wrong, and it is putting in some time to get it right. Do not be afraid to break your betting model down and readjust it, even if it requires changing it completely. Just a quick pro-tip:

• analyse your results;
• highlight the areas that need more attention;
• make some adjustments;
• go back and test it out using the historical data;
• do a quick field test and compare your results with the previous model.

Unfortunately, there is no other way to it. While your personal way of fixing your mistakes could differ from what we offered, the main idea of it will remain the same for every single bettor.

Betting 101. How to collect & analyse data for betting?

Being wrong does not always mean failure, instead, it could teach you a valuable lesson. Obviously, everyone wants to have a flawless record and land wager after wager. That would be really lovely, however, you risk being caught up in the moment and stake too much or stake more after the loss in order to make it back immediately. Doing so never ends up well.

Losing a bet is okay, and you should look at it as rather a way of benchmarking your predictive accuracy than a failure. If you see that the model that you’ve worked on for days is not providing the results it was supposed to, you should rather opt-out from stacking more and stick to lower flat stakes in order to mitigate the risk of losing your entire bankroll while testing out your model.

As soon as you get the hang of it and reach the level of profitability that you aimed for, you will have a better understanding of your edge over the market or the bookmaker. Whenever you reach that level, you can start trying out more complicated approaches and stacking methods like, for example, the Kelly Criterion. More complicated betting techniques involve lots of calculations and help you manage your risks. Sooner or later, you will develop the necessary risk tolerance that will allow you to make even better predictions and also stake more.

Professional punters often play with large amounts, which could easily mess with your head and affect your decision-making. Getting more accustomed to risks will help you keep your head cool and have a better understanding of betting in general. We are not talking about controlling the risk but rather understanding it and being able to remain confident. Losing in sports betting is completely normal, and it is never about that one wager that did not land. It is always about being profitable in the long run rather than focusing on short-term results.

In the end, we would like to sum it all up. Keep in mind, your adventure with sports betting is a constant learning process. You have to make a habit of paying as much attention to your failures as you do to your successes. They are equally, if not even more, important to your sports betting well-being. Always try to question yourself and analyse your betting. Questioning where you were wrong is the first step toward fixing your problem.

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Having said all of the above, it is really hard to say that being wrong in sports betting is actually a bad thing, don’t you agree?