If you had the ability to see what was going to happen, would you want it? I think it would be an advantage in so many ways, but at the same time a curse.
For one thing, I don’t want to know when people around me are going to die. I definitely don’t want to know when I am going to be leaving. Knowing other things though would be quite useful.
I would like to know what the weather is going to be like so I can plan accordingly. The weatherman always sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. Then you get rained on when he said it was going to be sunny and you wonder if he is just guessing.
Kind of like handicappers I guess.
Obviously it would be easy to make money if you could predict exactly what was going to happen. You would be in and out of the stock market at the right time, every bet you made on sports would win, and you could build businesses that provide a solution for a problem that doesn’t even exist yet.
Life would be easy in that way, but there would be no surprises. It would be like an actor who is given a script for a movie. The ending and everything that happens in between is already determined.
Maybe being able to predict things with some sense of certainty is enough. That’s where intuition can help, and also using rational thinking to determine probabilities through statistics.
You aren’t 100% sure that it will happen the way you think it will, but you are reasonably sure. That is what I am trying to do when building a model to forecast the possible different outcomes in sports.
If I’m betting totals, I want to know what the chances are of the score falling within a certain range, and then if the lines are different than my expectations I make a play. If they are very close to what I predict, it’s a pass.
The edge has to be there. There needs to be a certain margin that allows for me to be wrong and still have a chance to win. In sports betting that margin is very small because at -110 odds I can’t be wrong more than 47.6% of the time.
It’s all about probabilities, expected payoffs and managing the bankroll to survive the inevitable losing streaks that come.
Betting is so much like life. It’s moving forward with confidence when you feel the odds are in your favour, and it’s pulling back when the probabilities aren’t high enough to warrant a play. It’s about being sure of yourself even if the evidence of unintended results starts to pile up around you.
It’s about believing in your ability to figure things out and do what it takes to succeed. Not giving up, not being reckless, and staying the course – all these are valuable things that apply to betting and to life.
Have an intention, take action, make adjustments along the way, and keep trying. That is what my life as a bettor is all about, and it’s what my life in general looks like too.