Gambler's Fallacy in Sports Betting....??

[Joe Sharp]

What are your thoughts on the Monte Carlo Fallacy and it's existence in Sports Betting? Are "Back-to-Back" NBA games really independent of each other OR does statistical permutation exist? We always hear guys saying "Team X is DUE"! Are they a sucker or are they correct in believing that some deviation is likely from expected behaviour that is/was observed in repeated events?

I'm very interested in your thoughts!!

[rfr3sh]

Back to back games have stats to back up that it affects a teams play and also no team is due to win, you win from playing hard and caring

[SportsBettingPro]

Games are not independent of each other because there are (at minimum) psychological factors involved. However, the lines generally already price in these factors. For example, if you look up the ATS record of teams who have lost say 10 in a row, it will be almost exactly 50-50.

[Joe Sharp]

I tend to agree with you rfr3sh!


SBP - You are essentially stating that the Market is Efficient - I also agree with this theory (most of the time). How can we use this as an advantage as sports gamblers? Is it possible? Or do we need to spend 5 hours (at least) a day 'modeling' and capturing NEW data to try and stay ahead of the game? Is it worth it considering 90% of the posters here are long-term losers regardless of what they post?


*Disclaimer - I'm studying several books including Applied Statistics and Justin7's Conquering Risk so I'm just talking out loud!!*

[Joe Sharp]

No One Else?

[SHADYLANKY]

You might get more responses over in the Think Tank.

[Otters27]

Be careful going against teams that are on hot streaks.

[tickingclock1]

Be careful going against teams that are on hot streaks.

hot and cold batters in MLB. No such thing... just regression to career average.

[Joe Sharp]

"regression to career average" sounds funny to me. What's the cut-off? a 3rd or 4th year guy can't possibly have a "career average". When is that an official piece of data that you can track?

[Joe Sharp]

Be careful going against teams that are on hot streaks.

Not sure if you meant this as a joke or not. If the Market is efficient what does it matter if a team is "hot". Some of the best mathematicians (sp?) in the world are linesmakers - they account for that. Unless you are talkng about totals? What's the relevance of "hot streaks"? I'm not convinced that holds true ATS.

[Jackie Moon]

I was curious of this same thing although I was thinking do you tend to bet on a team that is due for a win? Say the Yankees lose 5 in a row do you start to bet on them if they become the underdog because they are "due"? I never do anyways...

[gregm]

If you havent read it before, the wizard off odds and vegas click had a great article on the monte carlo fallacy, I read it a while back and just remembered it after seeing this thread.

On the gamblers fallacy http://www.wizardofodds.com/gambling...ngsystems.html

vegas click http://vegasclick.com/gambling/fallacy.html