|
Why Sports Handicappers Lie to You Let’s do an experiment. Consider that sports handicappers Steve and Stan make
the following predictions in a 4-game series between the New York Yankees
and the Boston Red Sox that happened last week: Steve's picks: Game 1: 90% sure Yankees win (Result: WON!) Game 2: 90% sure Yankees win (Result: WON!) Game 3: 90% sure Yankees win (Result: WON!) Game 4: 90% sure Yankees win (Result: Lost) Stan’s picks: Game 1: 75% sure Yankees win (Result: WON!) Game 2: 75% sure Yankees win (Result: WON!) Game 3: 75% sure Yankees win (Result: WON!) Game 4: 75% sure Yankees win (Result: Lost) As it turned out, the New York Yankees won the series
by beating the Red Sox on 3 out of the 4 games. You’re quite happy with the
results. Let's say that tonight, there’s a game played between
the Chicago Cubs and the LA Dodgers. Handicappers Steve and Stan have made
the following predictions: Steve is 90% sure that the Chicago Cubs will
win. Stan is 75% sure that the LA Dodgers will win. Now, let me ask you an honest question: If you have to bet along with one sports handicapper for tonight’s game, who would you listen to: Steve or Stan? If you’re like the vast majority of people,
you’d probably listen to Steve and bet on the Cubs. When deciding to listen to Steve or Stan, you’ll be
balancing your preference on accuracy against your preference on confidence.
Most sports bettors, when given the information above, answer that they
believe Steve is the better sports handicapper, and therefore are more
likely to buy Steve’s picks and follow Steve’s predictions. But is Steve really the more trustworthy
expert? Mathematically, Stan believed that the Yankees would
win 75% of the time, and what happened? The Yankees won exactly 75% of the
time. Steve, on the other hand, believed that the Yankees
would win 90% of the time, and his prediction turned out to be off by a
margin of 15%! So in terms of
who is the more accurate sports handicapper, Stan
is by far and away the better one. Stan was completely correct in
predicting that the Yankees would win 75% of the time. In fact, even if Stan
were to say that he was only 65% sure that the Yankees would win each game,
he would still be a more accurate sports handicapper than Steve. That's
because the Yankees ended up winning 75% of the time, which means that
Stan’s confidence level was off by just 10%, compared to the 15% miss in
Steve’s prediction. The problem is, sports bettors don’t perceive things that way.
"In the real world, bettors prefer to listen to the sports handicapper who states 90% certainty over the more reasonable handicapper who displays conservatism in his selections."
In the example above, more people would rate Steve as
the better handicapper, even though math says that Stan is the one who's far
more accurate. What this shows is that even though we have all the
transparency and data we need to determine which handicapper recognizes the
limits of his prediction, we still tend to prefer the person who displays
overconfidence. This is the reason why sports handicappers tend to always
overexaggerate their sense of confidence in their selections. The "lock of the year" and "pick of the century" and
"100* Star selections" happen because sports bettors place excessive value
and emphasis on the confidence level of the handicapper. I always advise
sports handicappers to be reasonable with their display of confidence, for
that it is unethical for them to exaggerate their beliefs, when those
beliefs may end up costing people fortunes. However, the culture of exaggeration in confidence will
be very difficult to change, perpetuated by the fact that sports
bettors place so much value in a handicapper's confidence level, rather than
the actual accuracy of his selections. My advice to all sports
bettors is to hold handicappers more accountable for their overconfidence in
their predictions. The truth is that confidence has little to do with
accuracy in the sports betting world. If sports handicappers can sense that
bettors are no longer rewarding them for being overconfident in their
selections, they will adjust their language accordingly to how they really
feel about their picks. So if you find that various sports handicappers
advertise their picks as "locks of the year" or "pick of the century." Do
not be fooled into believing the magnitude of those claims. In this
business, sports handicappers who can express overconfidence in
their selections tend to gain the most trust from their clients.
Therefore, many handicappers will intentionally put up a false display of
overconfidence just to win over new customers. A similar effect can also be found in other fields. For
example, experts who expressed overconfidence in their beliefs were the ones
who were routinely invited to talk on television, giving them greater
exposure than their other comrades who may not sound as confident in their
beliefs. Similar findings are also apparent in the field of
medicine. This was demonstrated in a study by Eta Berner and Mark Graber
named "Overconfidence as a Cause of Diagnostic Error in Medicine" published
in the American Journal of Medicine.
The study found that many patients who died in the care of a doctor were
from a result of overconfidence in the doctor's intuition about the
patient's condition without formal testing. However, doctors are encouraged to sound confident
because patients always prefer doctors who can express great confidence in
their diagnosis, for that displaying any signs of uncertainty about
a diagnosis is a sign of weakness. A doctor who needs to open up a
medical book in front of a patient before making a diagnosis is perceived by
the patient as a doctor who is uncertain. This can lead to the patient
seeking treatment elsewhere by another doctor who can demonstrate
overconfidence in his or her beliefs. The problem is, when doctors put up a
false display of confidence because they are aware that patients put so much
value in confidence, it results in deaths for many patients. This same rings true in the world of sports
handicapping. A handicapper who claims that he has the "lock of the century"
sounds excessively confident in his belief that a certain bet will win. This
sense of overconfidence is what can bring him the trust of new clients, the
same way how patients are more drawn to a doctor who can display
overconfidence in his diagnosis. The problem is that such outward
displays of overconfidence by sports handicappers are nothing more than
false illusions. No pick in the world can be considered a "lock,"
even if there is collusion in the part of both teams to rig the game. Handicappers who display such false sense of
overconfidence are also the ones who enjoy taking great credit for their
successful picks, while taking little to no blame when their selections
fail. This is the same mentality of door-to-door salesmen who tend to shift
the blame to the consumer rather than themselves when they fail to close a
sale. For example, the mindset of "that woman just simply doesn't know the
value of an item even if it bit her in the face" is far more encouraging for
a salesman to think than "I'm terrible at selling."
Not all sports handicappers lie and exaggerate about their confidence level
in their predictions. It takes only a few rotten apples to spoil the basket
for all. The problem is that you can never stop all handicappers from
exaggerating about their confidence.
“Even for honest sports handicappers, to avoid all exaggerations would be to
put oneself at a sizable disadvantage against the competition.”
Let me put forth to you a very practical scenario: Put yourself into the
shoes of a sports handicapper. Let's say that you are a very honest and
truthful person, and you hate to exaggerate any claims...
But you know for a fact that many other sports handicappers exaggerate about
how good their picks really are. If they have a pick that they’re 60% sure
it would win, they may likely exaggerate and say that they’re 80% sure about
the selection.
So what happens if you are a sports handicapper who is promoting a pick that
you genuinely believe has a 65% of winning? As an honest sports handicapper,
you want to make a claim that reflects what you truly believe, which is that
the average person betting along on that pick will likely win 65% of the
time.
But the problem is that by being honest, you position your pick as being
worse off than the other guy who is exaggerating…
“The problem here is that even though you
have a superior pick than the other guy, you realize that by being honest
and say that you are 65% sure of your prediction, you will, in effect, put
yourself at a sizable disadvantage and get penalized for your honesty!”
In fact, you are doubly penalized:
·
Penalty #1
- By saying that you believe your pick has a 65% chance of winning, you
position your pick as an inferior pick to the other guy who is exaggerating.
·
Penalty #2
- You know that generally, people already make assumptions that sports
handicappers tend to exaggerate at least a little bit about their claims.
Therefore, if you are to be sincere and make an honest claim that you’re 65%
sure about your pick, then people will automatically assume that the actual
figure of how sure you really are about your pick is probably 55%-60%. Given these huge penalties, what would you personally do in this case?
Even as a truthful and honest sports handicapper, you know that by
refusing to exaggerate even just a little bit, you'll put yourself at a
tremendous disadvantage to your less honest competitors who unfairly
will have an edge over you because they choose to exaggerate about their
confidence level. As a result, by being honest means that you would shrink
your own market value, and allow other less honest sports handicappers to
unfairly gain a leg up on you.
So put yourself into this situation, and ask yourself what you would do.
I’ll tell you what many honest sports handicappers do in this case. What the
average honest sports handicapper is likely to do at this point is to
scratch his hair, shake his head, let off a big sigh, suck it up, and
exaggerate further by claiming that he is 85% sure about his pick. That’s
because it feels unacceptable to be honest, only to intentionally penalize
yourself and reward other dishonest sports handicappers for their
dishonesty.
“But exaggerating claims isn’t something
that only sports handicappers do. Everyone is guilty of exaggeration,
including you!”
Need evidence? Sure! Let’s take a look at your resume.
If you were a mediocre employee at your last company, you're likely to have
put in your resume that you were decent at your job.
If you were a good employee at your last job, you're likely to exaggerate a
bit and write that you were an excellent employee.
And if you were terrible at communications, would you be honest and
put in your resume that you are awful at communicating with other people?
Not a chance!
“You are likely to exaggerate about
certain subjective claims on your job resume for the same exact reason why
many sports handicappers exaggerate about their claims on how sure they are
about their selections. That's because by being 100% honest about your
capabilities on your job resume, you know you’ll put yourself at a sizable
disadvantage against everyone else who probably exaggerate at least a little
bit about theirs.”
So would you purposely penalize yourself by being 100% honest about all of
your strengths and shortcomings on your job resume? Knowing that other job
applicants are likely to exaggerate at least a little bit about their
strengths and shortcomings, you know that if you don’t follow suit and
exaggerate at least slightly about your strengths and weaknesses, you’d
intentionally position yourself at a significant disadvantage to others who
may be selected for the job over you.
This is the reason why many sports handicappers, including the honest ones, have fallen into the trap of exaggerating their claims. The problem comes in when customers feel that the picks they purchased haven’t lived up to expectations. When this happens, all sports handicappers get hurt because people become less trusting of the industry as a whole.
“My advice to all sports handicappers:
Do not exaggerate.”
It may not give you immediate dividends by being completely honest about all
of your claims. But what you do gain is the long-term advantage of
credibility, integrity, and trustworthiness to your customers.
The reason why I have such a massive
following of raving subscribers who trust me is because I do not abuse their
trust. I don’t exaggerate about my claims, and I don’t steer
my subscribers toward anything which I am not convinced of myself.
It is more important for sports handicappers to aim for the goal of gaining
people’s trust than to gain their immediate attention.
Gaining trust gives lasting dividends. Gaining
attention is only a temporary reward. If you’re in the business for the long haul, work on gaining people’s trust. In an arena littered with sports handicappers who are striving for the temporary payoff, it’s even more important for you to stand out from the crowd by focusing your strategy on growing trust, integrity, and credibility to your members. |