{"id":6432,"date":"2021-06-02T15:22:40","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T15:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/?page_id=6432"},"modified":"2023-09-26T12:32:26","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T12:32:26","slug":"outcome-bias","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/articles\/betting-psychology\/outcome-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"Outcome Bias In Betting and Gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"
When we engage in any form of betting it is common to allow the outcome to dictate where do we think our strategy was the correct one. The perfect example of this can be found on the blackjack table, where the Basic Strategy is the statistically most likely way of playing that will see you win more often. On occasions when we follow Basic Strategy<\/a> and succeed it was brilliant, but when we fail it’s a stupid way to play.<\/p>\n Imagine being sat at the blackjack table and being dealt 16<\/a>. The dealer has an eight showing, so basic strategy says to hit. If you do so and get a five then it\u2019s an amazing decision. If you get a six or higher, then it was an awful decision. Yet in both cases the decision-making process was the correct one and the outcome shouldn’t be allowed to change our opinion on that simple fact.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Outcome bias is a phrase that refers to the tendency to judge and entire event based purely on its outcome. As with any other cognitive bias, it is the brain taking a shortcut in order to help us process events. In the world of sport, and football in particular, one of the best ways of thinking about this is a penalty. A player can take a brilliant penalty only to see the goalkeeper make an excellent save. The save doesn’t mean the penalty was poor.<\/p>\n Equally, a player can take a really poor penalty that ends up in the back of the net. The fact that it resulted in a goal doesn’t therefore mean that it was a well taken penalty. Yet it is common for commentators and football fans to view penalties in such binary terms<\/a>. In a similar sense, a football team that lost the match didn’t necessarily play badly and so we need to avoid falling into the trap of allowing the outcome to dictate how we view something.<\/p>\n Jonathan Baron and John Hershey were psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania back in 1988. They discovered evidence that people tend to look too heavily at the outcome of a decision when deciding whether the decision was a good one or not. They worked with a series of subjects and asked those people to assess how good one of the decisions was. Across five separate studies they asked people about gambling and medical choices.<\/p>\n The subject in question were given access to information they needed in order to make a decision. The subjects said they shouldn\u2019t consider the outcome of the decision when assessing whether it was good or not, but they did. Even when they were asked to make a decision that was based purely on chance, such as pulling a card from the deck, with red cards receiving a reward and black cards not, they rated their decisions more highly when they correctly predicted the outcome.<\/p>\n In betting we can often fall into the trap of allowing outcome bias to retrospectively change the reasons we placed a bet. Before a horse race, for example, we can do heaps of research into which horses are best placed to be successful in the race in question. We can look up form, the going, which jockey is riding the horse and who is responsible for training the horse for the race, only for the horse to then lose.<\/p>\n The fact that the horse wasn’t successful doesn’t change the fact that our research was good. The “what” shouldn’t be allowed to alter our thinking about the “why”. As the person placing the bets, you have no control over any number of things involved in a horse race. It is therefore entirely unreasonable to judge your performance in placing bets by the outcome of the things that you’re betting on.<\/p>\n The same thing can be said for the outcome of a football match, a boxing bout or even something like a volleyball match. The success or otherwise of a bet is never dictated by the outcome, yet the very nature of outcome bias is such that we think the end result is the only thing that matters. This obviously isn\u2019t true and the reality is that the process is just as important, if not more important, than the final result.<\/p>\n As Bettors, the work of Baron and Hershey is proof that we have to be very careful when assessing our own decisions. One of the best ways of doing this is to keep track of all of the bets that you place and their outcomes. Individual wins might well make you feel good but the reality is that you need to make sure that you\u2019re not deceiving yourself. Keeping a profit and loss account ensures that this is the case.<\/p>\n The other thing that Baron and Hershey\u2019s work proves is that we should never put too much stock into what experts say<\/a>. When the 2008 global financial crash hit, there were countless so-called experts who were called upon by the media for claiming that they predicted it. They sold millions of books as a result, yet in truth many had been predicting something similar for years beforehand but were only right once.<\/p>\n Human instinct means that we will always be less critical of a bad decision that results in a good outcome. That is, in essence, the definition of outcome bias. We need to be able to critically examine the process that led to our decision in the first place. If the process was good, then that\u2019s the thing to remember regardless of the eventual outcome. If the process was bad, then we need to assess that even if it resulted in a positive outcome.<\/p>\n Imagine a scenario in which Liverpool are playing Everton in the Premier League. Ahead of kick-off, Liverpool are the overwhelming favourites to win. In the warmup however, Liverpool goalkeeper gets injured. You decide to place a bet on Everton because Liverpool\u2019s goalkeeper has been given the man of the match award in the last five matches, so his absence could be key to the result of the match.<\/p>\n In the end, Liverpool run out 3-0 winners, with the reserve goalkeeper making countless excellent saves. The reality is that you made the correct decision on your bet with the information you had available, so the outcome of the match shouldn\u2019t change that fact. The next time you come to place a bet you should follow exactly the same logic that you did for Liverpool\u2019s match against Everton because the outcome is irrelevant to your decision-making.<\/p>\nOutcome Bias Explained<\/h2>\n
Where It Comes From<\/h2>\n
Outcome Bias & Gambling<\/h2>\n
What It Means<\/h2>\n
Examples Of Outcome Bias In Sports Betting<\/h2>\n
Avoiding Outcome Bias<\/h2>\n