Do Statistics Really Matter in Sports Betting?

Following statistics may seem like a given to you if you are a sports bettor, but maybe not.  While many bettors take it for granted that they need to learn about and analyse statistics in order to succeed at betting, there are actually a surprisingly large number of articles that advise bettors to ignore statistics entirely.  Is there a foundation to the claim that stats don’t really matter?

There are perhaps several reasons why some bettors prefer to avoid statistics.  I would say that two of the three of these make some degree of sense:

• Statistics can send vastly different messages depending on how you interpret them. 
• The Gambler’s Fallacy comes into play.  This is the error of thinking that independent events influence one another.  In other words, the roulette wheel does not remember the previous spins. 
• Analysing statistics is a lot of work.

Obviously it is that third point which makes no sense, and which probably is not a consciously considered reason for most gamblers who choose to ignore stats.  That does not mean its influence isn’t there, however; laziness can be pretty compelling, and yes, learning to analyse statistics is a lot of work.

As to the first couple points, one can indeed draw vastly different messages from sets of data depending on how that data is interpreted  And that is the great challenge of sports analysis.  Gathering data is easy, but actually making sense of that data is quite difficult.  You could draw a very different conclusion from another bettor based on the same set.  But that does not mean statistics are useless or unreliable or sending false messages.  It means that your system of analysis and betting may or may not be sufficient.  If you can draw logical, consistently reliable conclusions from your data, you have a sound system.  If you cannot, then it is your analysis that is faulty, not the statistics. 

What about the Gambler’s Fallacy?  It is well worth considering, but not necessarily in this context.  Try to remember that you are not playing roulette.  There is a lot more going on here than the spin of a wheel.  There is no way to win consistently at roulette, but that is not true with sports betting.  It is true that there is nothing about past outcomes that necessarily will impact the future, but the same causal factors that contributed to past wins or losses can continue to exert an influence on future events.  The main thing to remember about the Gambler’s Fallacy is that it reveals the flaw with the Martingale system (something I strongly recommend avoiding if you don’t want to blow your bankroll).

So are statistics useless?  I find it pretty hard to argue that they are.  The question you should always be asking is whether your interpretive system is working or not.  Don’t talk yourself out of doing the hard work just because it’s hard.  It is the only way to win consistently at sports betting online!