An interesting little bit of betting psychology here or something I like to call "The Betting Brain". A lot of people out there ask me how I choose certain bets and how when there are hundreds of fixtures I can pick a few out, and in all honesty I think it's programmed in my brain somehow by now. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you all about how my head works - nobody needs to see that mess. Instead I'm going to touch on a few common misconceptions that you'll find when betting and they are all just your mind playing tricks on you.
"The C** List"
How many times have you talked about putting a team on "the c*** list". Yes, this is the list of teams that "always" let you down when you're placing a bet. Well, here's a wake up call, they don't always let you down at all. In modern society we're often always looking at the negatives rather than the positives. Ask anyone for a time where they experienced a high level of customer service from a company, and they'll sit and think about it for a while and then produce an answer, but ask someone about a time they had poor customer service and they'll start reeling off every detail of a complaint they had 10 years ago. It's not just you who does this, we're all exactly the same, and when betting we often create patterns that aren't there just because we remember that bad experience we had.
If I had a pound for the amount of times I'd heard:
I'm not backing them, they always let me down
I'm not backing them, they screwed me out of a 10-fold last week
I always lose on first half goals
These boys are getting added to the list
The list could go on but you get the point. But before you say or think these things, do you actually have any statistical evidence that backs it up? For example, one thing I've heard directed at me in the past is that I'm better or worse at certain markets than I am at others. There's no evidence to back that up. I personally analyse what works and what doesn't work for me every month and try to make improvements, which is what everyone should be doing.
It's easy to say you're commenting from memory, but as I mentioned above, your memory will block moderately good experiences, it's just how your betting brain works. I've always said that you've got to feel lucky to be lucky in betting, but if you're immediately writing off teams and bets before they've even happened, just because you THINK they always let you down, go away and do some research and see if that's actually true. Sure, your gut feeling may actually be backed up by statistics, in which case you're right to do so.
The Unrelated Events
This is similar to the above really but again it's something I always hear and that's people making unrelated events somehow related to give a negative outcome. Here's an example that I heard only just last week:
"I'm not backing first half goals in this Czech Youth game because the one earlier had loads of shots and was 0-0 at half time"
My question here is always.....and? How can you possibly form a relationship between those two bits of information when they have absolutely no influence on each other at all? For all you know, the teams you backed this morning have never been good for first half goals and the teams you're looking at now have knocked in plenty. But this doesn't just work in the negative sense, people actually create false positives as well. And here's some actual statistics to open up your eyes a little....
If I asked a lot of you out there, "What's the best league for goals" I can guarantee a lot of you will come back to me with the Dutch Eerste Division or something like that. It's had a reputation around the circuit now for a few years as one of the go-to leagues for goals, and rightly so, i'ts pretty decent most Friday's. But have you ever considered that the only reason you think it's got goals, because it's about the only league in the world which has the majority of fixtures on a Friday evening, making it stand out from the crowd. What if I told you that at the time of writing the Jordan Premier League, Kuwait Premier League, Saudi Pro League, Iceland 2.Deild and Qatar Stars League have ALL had a higher Both Teams to Score rate than the Holland Jupiler League. In fact, the Turkish Super Lig, Hungary NB I and Scottish Premiership are all not that far behind the Dutch in terms of both teams scoring on current stats, but do you ever consider whacking a BTTS acca on every single one of the games from those leagues in blind faith?
I bet another one you always look at on the Holland Jupiler league is Over 2.5 goals right? Well of the 169 world leagues I've got tracked right now, the Holland Jupiler League ranks a lowly 34th on the % of games with Over 2.5 Goals. Thailand, Faroe Islands, Finland, Luxembourg, Turkey and many more sit above it, in fact top of the pile is the UAE Pro League at 78% so far this season compared to the Dutch at 63%. And if you look at average goals per game, your beloved Jupiler League ranks way down in 44th with their shit average of 3.14 per game. Again, these are all at the time of writing, so don't take these stats and start backing massive goal accas in the UAE instead, that's not the point.
Conclusion
What I'm trying to say by all of this is don't always trust your brain. Try to look at the FACTS before choosing whether to bet on something and use a bit of gut instinct too. Don't just write teams off just because you think you can remember a time they let you down. And don't just back them blindly because you think you can remember a time it won. It's easy to remember really positive experiences, and it's even easier to remember really negative experiences, but you'll always forget about that time Fremad Amager scored a 92nd minute goal to get you a refund on the Over 2.0 Goal Line!
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