{"id":6863,"date":"2021-09-17T10:23:20","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T10:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/?page_id=6863"},"modified":"2021-09-17T15:21:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T15:21:01","slug":"superstitions-and-ritualistic-behaviours","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/articles\/betting-psychology\/superstitions-and-ritualistic-behaviours\/","title":{"rendered":"Superstitions And Ritualistic Behaviours In Betting And Gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"
Most people are superstitious to some extent. Even those that don\u2019t believe that they are will still say \u2018touch wood\u2019 when describing a possible outcome of an event or \u2018jinx\u2019 when they say the same thing as someone else at the same time. It can be an amusing affectation or something to laugh about with someone, but for some people those superstitions can be taken extremely seriously. They can begin to influence how they approach certain events or how they go about placing their bets on sporting outcomes.<\/p>\n
Whilst it can be an amusing and sometimes fascinating side of sport, when it begins to influence the manner in which people place bets, it is noteworthy. There are some that might perform better because of their superstitions, but this is usually sheer coincidence. Most of the time, people who allow rituals or superstitions to influence their betting will find that they perform much worse than those that do not. Consequently, it\u2019s crucial that we know what our own quirks and betting patters are and work to avoid them.<\/p>\n
An in-depth article looking at rituals and superstitions would run on for hundreds of pages. Indeed, there have been case studies carried out on them and their influence over gamblers that were subject to them. What we want to look at here is why people have superstitions at all, but to do so in a brief manner rather than to explore in as a dissertation. Studies show that around a quarter of all adults in the United Kingdom are actively superstitious, but why do they engage in such thinking?<\/p>\n
A superstition is a belief that things are influenced by \u2018magic, chance or divine fortune\u2019. They are typically engaged in in order to avoid a bad outcome or to encourage a good one and typically tend to see people abdicate responsibility to a higher power. This isn\u2019t necessarily a god or deity, but rather something as simple as \u2018nature\u2019. There is, according to the superstitious, a mysterious force that can lead to either success or failure influencing our lives as a matter of complete fortune, rather than hard work.<\/p>\n
This is something that has existed for millennia<\/a>, coming in the shape of \u2018Lady Luck\u2019 or the \u2018Wheel of Fortune\u2019. The use of charms, rites and rituals has existed throughout human history. These will often come into play during times when people feel adversity or when their situation is uncertain. There are few things as deliberately uncertain as bets, with neither those placing them nor those taking them knowing with certainty<\/em> what the outcome will be, even if we can all have a sense of how things are going to pan out sometimes.<\/p>\n In many ways, rituals and superstitions are a way of trying to take back control when control isn\u2019t there to be had. We have no way of controlling the outcome of a football match, for example, but if we cross our fingers or wear our lucky pants then it at least feels<\/em> as though we\u2019re doing something. We want to try to impose a sense of control on any situation that we find ourselves in, which is precisely what superstitions and rituals allow us to do. It doesn\u2019t actually<\/em> make a difference, but we feel like it might so we do it anyway.<\/p>\n It will hardly be a surprise to people that enjoy sports to learn that superstitions play a big part in them. Anyone that ever watched Rafael Nadal repeatedly pick his underwear out of his bottom before returning a serve in a tennis match, or saw Mohamed Salah drop to his knees and issue a prayer after scoring a goal will be used to the idea of superstitions and sport. Just as with superstitions in any other form of life, it is an attempt to gain a sense of control over something that someone has very little control of.<\/p>\n Of course, for sports people it is slightly different because they are, at least, taking part in the match or event in question and can therefore influence its outcome in at least some respect. They can\u2019t necessarily influence whether they pick up a fluke injury or whether another player or team performs better than them, but they can influence their own performance. As a result, obeying certain rituals and superstitions makes sense to them because it allows them to feel even more in control than they would otherwise be.<\/p>\n In betting, the same principle applies. None of us is able to influence the outcome of a sporting event, bar cheering and supporting those taking part when we\u2019re attending in person. Our shouts and cheers might help to contribute to the performance of one player, just as our jeers might cause another to underperform. Given that those physically in attendance is just a fraction of the number of people that will watch, bet on or generally care about an event in one way or another, however, it\u2019s generally quite negligible.<\/p>\n As a result, we look to find ways to influence one of two things with our superstitions: the outcome of the event or the bet that we\u2019re placing. Perhaps you\u2019re the sort of person that likes to bet on horse racing and often tend to narrow your choice down to two different horses. Rather than pick one, you toss a coin, assigning a value to each horse before doing so. This ritual has led to you picking a winner in the past, reinforcing the idea that it actually makes a difference to the success of your bet, so you keep on doing it.<\/p>\n The problem is, the reason it worked last time was that you\u2019d correctly identified one of the better horses taking part in the race and then it was pure chance that the coin landed in a way that saw you place your bet on the \u2018winning\u2019 horse. It didn\u2019t work the next time you did it because neither of the horses that you narrowed it down to were ever likely to be successful, so the coin couldn\u2019t have helped even if it was able to. The superstitions can lead to your decision making being poor, which is exactly what we want to avoid.<\/p>\n By assigning power to a ritual or superstition that it doesn\u2019t deserve, we put ourselves in a position whereby we can believe that we\u2019re more likely to win<\/a> than we actually are. This, in turn, might well lead to us doing less research than we would normally do because we abdicate responsibility of the success or otherwise of our wagers to our beliefs. Equally, we can believe that something is less likely to happen because we did not carry out our ritual correctly, influencing things for the worse rather than for the better.<\/p>\n When our beliefs are influenced by something that is false, such as a superstition, the outcome will often not be what we want it to be. Consequently, we should ignore all such things and carry out sensible decision making, but we don\u2019t. Instead, we enslave ourselves to our superstitions and rituals, gaining a false sense of confidence<\/a> in our betting because of them. When bets are based on belief rather fact, we will lose in the long-run, which goes entirely against what we\u2019re trying to achieve with our betting choices.<\/p>\nSuperstitions And Betting<\/h2>\n
Influencing Our Belief We Will Win<\/h2>\n
The Link Between Superstitions & Problem Gambling<\/h2>\n