by Axel Rondon
The concepts of “luck” and “skill” in sports betting
Luck (fortune) is a positive outcome (assessment) of an event in betting. If we translate into bets, then this is a win on a bet without any effort (analytics). The bettor guessed the result without resorting to analyzing the event, assessing the teams' potential and other factors (injuries, disqualifications, current form).
He simply chose one of three possible outcomes (W1 - draw - W2) and was right due to pure luck. The player spent no more than 5 minutes of his time on the entire process of concluding a deal. It seemed to him that it was easy to predict bets this way, because he made money without doing anything. He liked it and now he has a taste for it and will try to do this again and again. But luck will smile only once or twice, and then he will experience all the bitterness of defeats and lost money.
Skill - how says in michezo-yakubeti.com concept means the ability to analyze sports bets, find value and avoid wrong bets. To hone their skills, bookmaker clients have been gaining experience in their own practice for years, using different approaches, changing their bankroll management strategy, and much more. It takes an experienced forecaster hours, and sometimes days, to analyze one gaming event, but even then he is not ready to say 100% that the chosen bet will work.
But it is also worth understanding that one does not exist without the other. Luck and skill are always intertwined. Every time there is a possibility of some kind of incident that can ruin the bet. A simple example: in the 10th minute of the match, the leader of one of the teams gets injured and leaves the field. His skills would be enough for him to score 1-2 goals and his team would win. But when he was replaced by an ordinary reservist, the potential decreased greatly, and the club lost the match. Of course, an analyst with 10 years of experience could not predict such a turn, although his thoughts before the meeting were correct. In sports, such events happen all the time, which makes the betting process random, partly depending on the skill of the capper and partly on luck.
What professions help in betting?
The main thing is to understand that it is not the professions themselves that determine success in betting, but the qualities and skills that the bearers of these professions possess. This will require perseverance, attentiveness, the ability to work with numbers, absorb large amounts of information, have high stress tolerance and be prepared to take risks. We have prepared a list of the most suitable professions that will help you best get used to betting from the first days and successfully engage in betting for a long time.
Trader. The trader’s task is to buy a unit of goods at a reduced price and resell it at a more profitable price. It doesn’t matter what kind of product it is, what matters is the process and the ability to adapt to market circumstances. The situation is similar in betting. It is necessary to find suitable situations for betting, find errors in the bookmaker system and use them for your own purposes. In betting, you need to find inflated odds, bet on them and get a higher profit compared to other cappers. Traders will feel comfortable both when working with a bookmaker directly and with a betting exchange. And recently, cryptocurrency has been actively used in betting and this is another opportunity to combine two processes. We have already written about how to use bitcoin in betting.
Economist or Accountant. The ability to keep reports and correctly calculate possible losses/profits will be an excellent skill and will save time. Yes, this will not help with analysis, but it systematizes and simplifies all related processes.
Sports journalist. A person in this profession has the necessary experience in searching for relevant information, and sometimes even inside information. He knows exactly what pillars the entire internal system of sports clubs is built on. Thanks to your connections, you have the opportunity to learn about future transfers, possible injuries and conflicts within the team. In addition, a journalist knows how to package large amounts of data from the Internet, process this information in a short time and take the most valuable things from it.
Former athlete. A professional will be able to understand the analysis better than a self-taught fan. It is the athlete who knows the hidden nuances that should also be taken into account when choosing bets. With proper dedication, this particular person can become a cool forecaster in the world of sports betting.
Programmer. Everything here is simply simple, because a programmer is able to develop useful software that will allow you to find forks or a bot for analysis. The employee also has the necessary perseverance to work with bets. Such people are also able to bring the necessary creativity to sports betting and come up with new tricks when looking for the office’s mistakes.
Psychotherapist or psychiatrist. He may not be the best analyst in sports betting, but he definitely knows how to control himself and not become a victim of gambling addiction. When betting, it is always difficult to control excitement and your emotions, but with the help of special techniques this will be much easier. By using a cool head, you will be able to win more than with an impulsive and chaotic game.
BC analyst/employee. If you know the operating principle of a bookmaker from the inside, how odds are calculated, why accounts are cut and other details, you can adjust accordingly as a client. Sports betting analysts also know how to correctly analyze events and what to pay special attention to.
The paradox of skill and luck
The paradox is that luck and skill in betting have approximately equal influence on the final outcome. This is not a casino where 100% is given to luck and absolutely nothing depends on the player. And this is not a contractual event, where the result is predetermined long before the starting whistle. A fair bet is somewhere between the first and second understanding. On the one hand, we try to determine the result using detailed analytics, reconciliation of results and other factors, thereby increasing our chances of success. On the other hand, there is also pure chance, which is influenced by the human factor. For example, a defender brought an unnecessary penalty in the last minutes or there was a sending off at the beginning of the match, which affected the outcome.
Another paradox is that in the short term, luck can beat skill. Here's a simple example: a newcomer randomly chose an outcome on a line, betting on Team A to win. He didn't think about his choice for a minute, but simply clicked his mouse and made a deal with the bookmaker. The professional, after conducting a qualitative analysis, did not agree with such a bet and bet on the contrary, on the win of team B, which he considered the favorite. But due to a certain set of circumstances, it was the first team that won, which no one expected from them. This is luck. At a distance, everything will be compensated, and offensive losses will be covered by positive bets, but in isolated cases, any outcome is possible.
Luck and bots for betting
In recent years, sports betting has become increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence in forecasting. Programmers develop special bots that, using algorithms, identify favorites and offer seemingly profitable bets. But luck and the human factor come into play again. Computers work with statistics and make conclusions based on the information received over the past 5–10 years. But a professional athlete does not think about what happened before, he is focused right now, on a specific event. He can either make a mistake and score a goal into his own goal, or he can play at the highest level, bringing his team victory. He doesn’t care what the computer bot thinks about him and his colleagues. Artificial intelligence is not able to assess the athlete’s poor health, his desire to lose when it is beneficial for him, and other factors. And if you are offered 100% probability for betting, do not believe it. This is an elementary desire to charge you money for the forecast provided.
Luck and the human factor in betting
This is where it’s worth taking a closer look. We have previously touched on the human factor and its impact on rates. Now let's try to name the main reasons why this may be important, and what actually happens behind the scenes of big games, when the average bettor doesn't even know about it. For some, this or that result will be considered luck if you bet against the favorites or the betting field, but for others it is a human factor.
Injuries. In singles sports, athletes may play through injury using shots and other devices, which directly affects their dedication and performance in the match. This is a problem for betting because the final score is skewed compared to if the player were fully healthy.
Lack of motivation. At the end of the season, not all teams and players are motivated to win. The result falls into second place, all that remains is to finish the calendar and retire to a well-deserved rest. At such moments, the likelihood of sensations increases, when outsiders fight to maintain their registration and gnaw out important points for themselves.
Poor preparation. A similar problem often occurs at the beginning of the season, when teams or players in an individual sport are returning from vacation and are not yet in optimal shape. In this situation, unnecessary lesions often occur. While concentration is reduced and physical condition is not developed, there is a chance to lose even to an outright outsider. And here it doesn’t matter what experience the team or athlete has.
Negotiations. Sports betting always means a lot of money, and the bulk of it is spent in unofficial circles. And when outside investors bribe referees or players, none of us know it. Bettors place bets in the usual manner, but in reality receive an unexpected result. There is no luck here, only the human factor that directly influenced the bet on sports.
Psychology. There is such a thing as an inconvenient opponent. This is especially true for solitary species. And if you lose several games in a row to such an opponent, it becomes psychologically uncomfortable. And here it no longer matters what experience the player has, skills and capabilities. He is shackled in his own head, and is unable to demonstrate anything other than another loss.
Conflicts in the team. And there are cases when teams lose their coaches due to their own defeats. They can lose 5-10 matches in a row until they achieve the desired effect. Results also decrease due to conflicts within the team among the players themselves. Decreased teamwork and reluctance to interact with a hated colleague become the main reasons for failure.
Research on skill and luck in betting
Let's take tennis as an example. There are two tennis players playing there and the chance of winning will be 50/50. We are not taking their skills now, but only specific mathematical chances. The same thing will happen if you flip a coin. Heads and tails will have the same chances. By making one bet or tossing a coin once, you can immediately win or lose, but it will be luck and nothing more. But what if you do this 100 times? Nothing will change, you will just guess with a certain frequency (about 40 to 60% in either direction). But when you do all the same actions 1,000 times, then the chances even out and again it will be 50 to 50, this is called the theory of probability. The point is that over a long distance the proportion of luck will be equal, while over a short distance there will be a certain advantage in one direction.
The situation will repeat itself in betting. A player with good luck in the short term will win, for example, 60% of the bets, but when he comes to the thousandth bet, he will find that he guessed about 500 times, and 500 times his prediction was wrong. An unlucky bettor will come to the same conclusion, only at around 100 bets he will guess only 40%, with a 60% loss, but after 1,000 the situation will level out. The bottom line is that you may or may not have luck, but ultimately it doesn't have much impact on your success or failure.
But the main problem is that bets have a mandatory margin (on average 5%), which takes away the potential winnings. It turns out that in order to remain with zero expectation, you need to guess 55% of the bets, and not 50, as before. To play profitably on bets, you need to be even more successful (60% or more). But it is almost impossible for a beginner to show such a percentage at a distance; skill is already required here. Therefore, anyone who relies solely on their own luck will definitely end up in the red. And in order to beat the office at bets, you need appropriate knowledge.
Professional environment
We all know that it is better to master one blow a thousand times than a thousand blows once. But it doesn't work quite like that in betting. It is important to take into account many different factors (luck, bookmaker margins, drawdown, increase in odds, human factor). Your skills may give you a head start over other cappers in analytics and decision making, which will only please your ego, but this will not always work in making a profit. Let’s say that you have predicted everything and chosen the ideal sports bet in all respects. But the coach sent Maguire onto the field and he first scored an own goal, and then finished off the team with a foul that led to a penalty. It's not your fault, but you still lost money on this bet. Therefore, you should not be too attached to the professional’s own skills when choosing bets. It's better to concentrate on the overall work - how to beat the line, minimize the impact of failure and make a profit at a distance.
Luck (fortune) is a positive outcome (assessment) of an event in betting. If we translate into bets, then this is a win on a bet without any effort (analytics). The bettor guessed the result without resorting to analyzing the event, assessing the teams' potential and other factors (injuries, disqualifications, current form).
He simply chose one of three possible outcomes (W1 - draw - W2) and was right due to pure luck. The player spent no more than 5 minutes of his time on the entire process of concluding a deal. It seemed to him that it was easy to predict bets this way, because he made money without doing anything. He liked it and now he has a taste for it and will try to do this again and again. But luck will smile only once or twice, and then he will experience all the bitterness of defeats and lost money.
Skill - how says in michezo-yakubeti.com concept means the ability to analyze sports bets, find value and avoid wrong bets. To hone their skills, bookmaker clients have been gaining experience in their own practice for years, using different approaches, changing their bankroll management strategy, and much more. It takes an experienced forecaster hours, and sometimes days, to analyze one gaming event, but even then he is not ready to say 100% that the chosen bet will work.
But it is also worth understanding that one does not exist without the other. Luck and skill are always intertwined. Every time there is a possibility of some kind of incident that can ruin the bet. A simple example: in the 10th minute of the match, the leader of one of the teams gets injured and leaves the field. His skills would be enough for him to score 1-2 goals and his team would win. But when he was replaced by an ordinary reservist, the potential decreased greatly, and the club lost the match. Of course, an analyst with 10 years of experience could not predict such a turn, although his thoughts before the meeting were correct. In sports, such events happen all the time, which makes the betting process random, partly depending on the skill of the capper and partly on luck.
What professions help in betting?
The main thing is to understand that it is not the professions themselves that determine success in betting, but the qualities and skills that the bearers of these professions possess. This will require perseverance, attentiveness, the ability to work with numbers, absorb large amounts of information, have high stress tolerance and be prepared to take risks. We have prepared a list of the most suitable professions that will help you best get used to betting from the first days and successfully engage in betting for a long time.
Trader. The trader’s task is to buy a unit of goods at a reduced price and resell it at a more profitable price. It doesn’t matter what kind of product it is, what matters is the process and the ability to adapt to market circumstances. The situation is similar in betting. It is necessary to find suitable situations for betting, find errors in the bookmaker system and use them for your own purposes. In betting, you need to find inflated odds, bet on them and get a higher profit compared to other cappers. Traders will feel comfortable both when working with a bookmaker directly and with a betting exchange. And recently, cryptocurrency has been actively used in betting and this is another opportunity to combine two processes. We have already written about how to use bitcoin in betting.
Economist or Accountant. The ability to keep reports and correctly calculate possible losses/profits will be an excellent skill and will save time. Yes, this will not help with analysis, but it systematizes and simplifies all related processes.
Sports journalist. A person in this profession has the necessary experience in searching for relevant information, and sometimes even inside information. He knows exactly what pillars the entire internal system of sports clubs is built on. Thanks to your connections, you have the opportunity to learn about future transfers, possible injuries and conflicts within the team. In addition, a journalist knows how to package large amounts of data from the Internet, process this information in a short time and take the most valuable things from it.
Former athlete. A professional will be able to understand the analysis better than a self-taught fan. It is the athlete who knows the hidden nuances that should also be taken into account when choosing bets. With proper dedication, this particular person can become a cool forecaster in the world of sports betting.
Programmer. Everything here is simply simple, because a programmer is able to develop useful software that will allow you to find forks or a bot for analysis. The employee also has the necessary perseverance to work with bets. Such people are also able to bring the necessary creativity to sports betting and come up with new tricks when looking for the office’s mistakes.
Psychotherapist or psychiatrist. He may not be the best analyst in sports betting, but he definitely knows how to control himself and not become a victim of gambling addiction. When betting, it is always difficult to control excitement and your emotions, but with the help of special techniques this will be much easier. By using a cool head, you will be able to win more than with an impulsive and chaotic game.
BC analyst/employee. If you know the operating principle of a bookmaker from the inside, how odds are calculated, why accounts are cut and other details, you can adjust accordingly as a client. Sports betting analysts also know how to correctly analyze events and what to pay special attention to.
The paradox of skill and luck
The paradox is that luck and skill in betting have approximately equal influence on the final outcome. This is not a casino where 100% is given to luck and absolutely nothing depends on the player. And this is not a contractual event, where the result is predetermined long before the starting whistle. A fair bet is somewhere between the first and second understanding. On the one hand, we try to determine the result using detailed analytics, reconciliation of results and other factors, thereby increasing our chances of success. On the other hand, there is also pure chance, which is influenced by the human factor. For example, a defender brought an unnecessary penalty in the last minutes or there was a sending off at the beginning of the match, which affected the outcome.
Another paradox is that in the short term, luck can beat skill. Here's a simple example: a newcomer randomly chose an outcome on a line, betting on Team A to win. He didn't think about his choice for a minute, but simply clicked his mouse and made a deal with the bookmaker. The professional, after conducting a qualitative analysis, did not agree with such a bet and bet on the contrary, on the win of team B, which he considered the favorite. But due to a certain set of circumstances, it was the first team that won, which no one expected from them. This is luck. At a distance, everything will be compensated, and offensive losses will be covered by positive bets, but in isolated cases, any outcome is possible.
Luck and bots for betting
In recent years, sports betting has become increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence in forecasting. Programmers develop special bots that, using algorithms, identify favorites and offer seemingly profitable bets. But luck and the human factor come into play again. Computers work with statistics and make conclusions based on the information received over the past 5–10 years. But a professional athlete does not think about what happened before, he is focused right now, on a specific event. He can either make a mistake and score a goal into his own goal, or he can play at the highest level, bringing his team victory. He doesn’t care what the computer bot thinks about him and his colleagues. Artificial intelligence is not able to assess the athlete’s poor health, his desire to lose when it is beneficial for him, and other factors. And if you are offered 100% probability for betting, do not believe it. This is an elementary desire to charge you money for the forecast provided.
Luck and the human factor in betting
This is where it’s worth taking a closer look. We have previously touched on the human factor and its impact on rates. Now let's try to name the main reasons why this may be important, and what actually happens behind the scenes of big games, when the average bettor doesn't even know about it. For some, this or that result will be considered luck if you bet against the favorites or the betting field, but for others it is a human factor.
Injuries. In singles sports, athletes may play through injury using shots and other devices, which directly affects their dedication and performance in the match. This is a problem for betting because the final score is skewed compared to if the player were fully healthy.
Lack of motivation. At the end of the season, not all teams and players are motivated to win. The result falls into second place, all that remains is to finish the calendar and retire to a well-deserved rest. At such moments, the likelihood of sensations increases, when outsiders fight to maintain their registration and gnaw out important points for themselves.
Poor preparation. A similar problem often occurs at the beginning of the season, when teams or players in an individual sport are returning from vacation and are not yet in optimal shape. In this situation, unnecessary lesions often occur. While concentration is reduced and physical condition is not developed, there is a chance to lose even to an outright outsider. And here it doesn’t matter what experience the team or athlete has.
Negotiations. Sports betting always means a lot of money, and the bulk of it is spent in unofficial circles. And when outside investors bribe referees or players, none of us know it. Bettors place bets in the usual manner, but in reality receive an unexpected result. There is no luck here, only the human factor that directly influenced the bet on sports.
Psychology. There is such a thing as an inconvenient opponent. This is especially true for solitary species. And if you lose several games in a row to such an opponent, it becomes psychologically uncomfortable. And here it no longer matters what experience the player has, skills and capabilities. He is shackled in his own head, and is unable to demonstrate anything other than another loss.
Conflicts in the team. And there are cases when teams lose their coaches due to their own defeats. They can lose 5-10 matches in a row until they achieve the desired effect. Results also decrease due to conflicts within the team among the players themselves. Decreased teamwork and reluctance to interact with a hated colleague become the main reasons for failure.
Research on skill and luck in betting
Let's take tennis as an example. There are two tennis players playing there and the chance of winning will be 50/50. We are not taking their skills now, but only specific mathematical chances. The same thing will happen if you flip a coin. Heads and tails will have the same chances. By making one bet or tossing a coin once, you can immediately win or lose, but it will be luck and nothing more. But what if you do this 100 times? Nothing will change, you will just guess with a certain frequency (about 40 to 60% in either direction). But when you do all the same actions 1,000 times, then the chances even out and again it will be 50 to 50, this is called the theory of probability. The point is that over a long distance the proportion of luck will be equal, while over a short distance there will be a certain advantage in one direction.
The situation will repeat itself in betting. A player with good luck in the short term will win, for example, 60% of the bets, but when he comes to the thousandth bet, he will find that he guessed about 500 times, and 500 times his prediction was wrong. An unlucky bettor will come to the same conclusion, only at around 100 bets he will guess only 40%, with a 60% loss, but after 1,000 the situation will level out. The bottom line is that you may or may not have luck, but ultimately it doesn't have much impact on your success or failure.
But the main problem is that bets have a mandatory margin (on average 5%), which takes away the potential winnings. It turns out that in order to remain with zero expectation, you need to guess 55% of the bets, and not 50, as before. To play profitably on bets, you need to be even more successful (60% or more). But it is almost impossible for a beginner to show such a percentage at a distance; skill is already required here. Therefore, anyone who relies solely on their own luck will definitely end up in the red. And in order to beat the office at bets, you need appropriate knowledge.
Professional environment
We all know that it is better to master one blow a thousand times than a thousand blows once. But it doesn't work quite like that in betting. It is important to take into account many different factors (luck, bookmaker margins, drawdown, increase in odds, human factor). Your skills may give you a head start over other cappers in analytics and decision making, which will only please your ego, but this will not always work in making a profit. Let’s say that you have predicted everything and chosen the ideal sports bet in all respects. But the coach sent Maguire onto the field and he first scored an own goal, and then finished off the team with a foul that led to a penalty. It's not your fault, but you still lost money on this bet. Therefore, you should not be too attached to the professional’s own skills when choosing bets. It's better to concentrate on the overall work - how to beat the line, minimize the impact of failure and make a profit at a distance.