The Golden Goose Lang has raised some inquiries in my mind lately that might prove helpful to the way we look at life and gambling, considering our general intuition or conceptions about reality, but more fully elucidated with mathematics. That is, recently Lang is 3-19 in the last 22 days, I think with the worst streak at around 11 days straight of losers.
The mathematics of this can be helpful for us as handicappers as well, and I'm sure it's been discussed at least in passing on some threads here over the years. Just for fun, let's see what the odds of a streak of 5 are (Heads or Tails, we can equate that to Win or Loss, but I'll talk about that more in a second):
If you flip a coin 50 times, the odds of a streak of 5 in a row (heads or tails) is about 82%. That means either side in particular is about 41%.
Let's look at a year of "flips" around 365, that is, picking every day for a year:
There is a 28% probability that you'll get a streak of 10, heads or tails. By the way, a streak of 9 is 50% and a streak of 8 is about 75%.
From graphs that can show this distribution for varying number of "throws" or "picks" let's take Lang's 11 in a row for a year set (365). The odds that 11 in a row, either side, that would turn up is about 13% (again, which means about 6.5% that it would be a "winning" or "losing" streak in particular).
17 losses in a row, the worst I've seen him, is pretty much off the charts. That tells us something, I believe, in particular:
Picking games isn't 50/50, particularly on the losing side, I'd argue. Even with a 365 toss or pick set (a year) the odds are almost nil that he would lose (or win) 17 in a row.
This conclusion is actually encouraging, depending on how you are. But let's get back to explaining how one could lose so many, or so many in a row even. My theory is that the human side of handicapping, particularly when you are losing, is so influenced by outside factors (confidence, the "public", worry about being too bold or too conservative --- all of which reinforce one another) that the losing side is FAR more susceptible to streaks. This is intuitively, if not empirically true. In a sense, the mathematics shows us that my hypothesis should be accepted, given the near impossible probability of Mr. Lang, even with a set above 365, of losing 17 in a row.
All in all, I thought you guys would find this interesting --- I hope you do --- and learn something about how truly common streaks are, but how losing streaks are much more than random.
The mathematics of this can be helpful for us as handicappers as well, and I'm sure it's been discussed at least in passing on some threads here over the years. Just for fun, let's see what the odds of a streak of 5 are (Heads or Tails, we can equate that to Win or Loss, but I'll talk about that more in a second):
If you flip a coin 50 times, the odds of a streak of 5 in a row (heads or tails) is about 82%. That means either side in particular is about 41%.
Let's look at a year of "flips" around 365, that is, picking every day for a year:
There is a 28% probability that you'll get a streak of 10, heads or tails. By the way, a streak of 9 is 50% and a streak of 8 is about 75%.
From graphs that can show this distribution for varying number of "throws" or "picks" let's take Lang's 11 in a row for a year set (365). The odds that 11 in a row, either side, that would turn up is about 13% (again, which means about 6.5% that it would be a "winning" or "losing" streak in particular).
17 losses in a row, the worst I've seen him, is pretty much off the charts. That tells us something, I believe, in particular:
Picking games isn't 50/50, particularly on the losing side, I'd argue. Even with a 365 toss or pick set (a year) the odds are almost nil that he would lose (or win) 17 in a row.
This conclusion is actually encouraging, depending on how you are. But let's get back to explaining how one could lose so many, or so many in a row even. My theory is that the human side of handicapping, particularly when you are losing, is so influenced by outside factors (confidence, the "public", worry about being too bold or too conservative --- all of which reinforce one another) that the losing side is FAR more susceptible to streaks. This is intuitively, if not empirically true. In a sense, the mathematics shows us that my hypothesis should be accepted, given the near impossible probability of Mr. Lang, even with a set above 365, of losing 17 in a row.
All in all, I thought you guys would find this interesting --- I hope you do --- and learn something about how truly common streaks are, but how losing streaks are much more than random.
