It’s so easy to see things clearly after the fact. Once the outcome is known, the result was never in doubt.
Except it was. There was enough uncertainty beforehand that perhaps you didn’t act in the manner you wish you had. This goes for everything, both betting and life in general.
We make decisions everyday based on information that may be lacking in many ways. It is difficult to always know the entire picture before we have to act. Of course, in hindsight everything makes perfect sense.
That is because the information is now complete. The outcome provided the clarity to see how everything fit together and that there was only one possible conclusion.
Basically we are always deciding what to do with incomplete input.
All we can do is learn from what happened and move forward from there with a new understanding for why things worked out the way they did. This is why odds are so important. The skill of being able to look at a situation and to reduce it into probabilities is extremely valuable.
If you ask someone on a date, there would appear to be a 50-50 chance that they will say yes. It is either a yes or no answer. Actually they could say maybe but that is usually just a nice way of saying no.
But the odds aren’t always 50%. They could be as little as 1%, which basically means no shot, or up to 99%, a sure thing. I don’t like to assign 0 or 100 to any situation, because it’s prudent to leave a little room for randomness.
If you move through life with a clear understanding of probabilities, then you can increase the likelihood of success in whatever you choose to do.
When you go to university or college, if there is a 75% chance that you will find employment in your chosen field then that seems like a decent proposition. If the numbers show that 25% of graduates find a job in the field and 75% don’t, then perhaps you would want to consider something else. Or not. If you think you can be one of the 25% then that’s okay too.
Finding success will always be dependant on figuring out what the chances are to the best of your ability. If you know the odds are against you, then you also know that you have to be that much better than everyone else in order to succeed.
Betting is all about that. Nothing else matters but the odds. In sports betting, most of the prices fall around -110, but it does vary and sometimes by a great deal. If you are consistently playing against -120, then the need to be that much more accurate increases.
Where a profit can be achieved with 52.8% proficiency at -110, that profit disappears at -120. At that price you need to be right at least 55% of the time. It may not seem like a lot but anytime you reduce your edge, in the long run it affects the chances of success.
Success is realized when you take as much information as is available and then make the best decision that you can given your personal interpretation of the data. After that it becomes about finding the best odds and only playing when the reward is worth the risk.
Do that on a regular basis and you can be a successful bettor.
Apply this formula to life and that can be successful for you too.