Sports betting is becoming more widely embraced in the US now that 38 states have legal betting.
That includes the state of Pennsylvania, which legalized sports betting in 2018, shortly after the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which prohibited sports betting for the longest time.
Since then, more and more Americans have shown confidence in the safety of sports betting, and today, one of the most wagered-on sports is basketball.
Now, when it comes to betting on sports like basketball, many still focus on traditional statistics like player performance and team records to improve their chances of placing winning bets.
However, there’s also a growing recognition of the importance of psychological factors in placing bets, particularly when it comes to winning and losing streaks.
Cognitive Biases that Can Impact How a Person Place Their Wagers
Whether it’s in gambling or basketball matches, streaks can happen. However, these streaks can trick you into believing that they’re more meaningful than they are. Cognitive biases are to blame for this, and you’ll likely experience them when dealing with the fluctuating nature of NBA games.
The first step to avoiding these cognitive biases is knowing and understanding them. So, be sure you’re mindful of the following:
The Gambler’s Fallacy
This is the belief that if something happens more frequently than usual during a given period, it will happen less frequently in the future, or vice versa. In basketball, this might manifest as thinking, “This team has won five games in a row; they’re due for a loss.”
However, each game is independent, and past outcomes don’t guarantee future results. For example, even if a team has a 70% win rate, the odds of winning the next game are still 70% and not drastically lower because of previous wins.
Hot Hand Fallacy
This one is similar to Gambler’s Fallacy, but instead of thinking that a team is due for a loss because of consecutive wins, you’ll think they’re due for another win because of a hot streak.
Confirmation Bias
This is the tendency to search for, interpret, or favor information that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs. If you believe a team is on a winning streak, you’ll likely focus on positive statistics and ignore negative ones. You might highlight a team’s offensive efficiency while overlooking their defensive weaknesses, making your wagers illogical.
Emotional Influence
It’s common for betting enthusiasts and experts to advise that you should never place bets based on your emotions. That’s because the feeling of excitement, fear, and frustration can significantly impact your betting decisions.
You might feel like you should be placing bets on your favorites just because you feel strongly about them winning without considering how they’ve performed during their last few games.
Seeing a wager with increased basketball betting odds on 10CRIC and other betting platforms can also trigger excitement that can lead you to believe you should be siding on favorites immediately. Then there’s also how emotions can lead to chasing your losses, which can only lead to serious problems when it comes to gambling.
Statistical Analysis of Streaks
While psychological factors are essential, it is also crucial to incorporate statistical analysis when evaluating streaks. Analyzing data on the frequency and duration of winning and losing streaks in the NBA can give you valuable insights into their impact on game outcomes.
For instance, studies on NBA streaks have shown that the length of winning and losing streaks often follows a near-random distribution, meaning long streaks are relatively rare but do occur.
Research has also indicated that factors like schedule difficulty, team rest, and opponent quality significantly influence the likelihood of a streak continuing. For example, a study analyzing several seasons of NBA data found that teams playing on the second night of a back-to-back are statistically more likely to end a winning streak or extend a losing one.
So, you should always look into a team’s performance against the spread (ATS) during streaks, as this can be insightful. A team might win games, but if they consistently fail to cover the spread, it could indicate that their wins are less dominant than perceived. This could also mean a regression to the mean is coming.
Conclusion
So, don’t chase streaks blindly, and recognize that they’re not always the basis for how upcoming match results will turn out.
Don’t fall into the cognitive biases that can cloud your judgment, and maybe look into data analysis instead if you’re looking for ways to make your betting predictions more accurate.
PHOTO: Marko Bukorovic/Pixabay
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