After a couple of weeks banging the drum for our bookie fairplay campaign in these columns, I am getting back to basics today with a focus on betting trends – including how one simple set of analysis helped boost the ROI punters can enjoy on one top tipster to as much as 15.4%!

First of all though, a little education on what to watch out for when it comes to trends and avoiding being sucked in by something called the ‘Gamblers Fallacy’.

To briefly explain using the coin toss analogy (a cliché I know but it’s easy to understand!) If I were to toss a coin 10 times and each time it were to come up heads, many people would automatically think the 11th time MUST be tails.

This is the fallacy in action as the 11th coin toss is completely independent of the previous 10 and there remains a 50/50 chance that it will be either tails of heads. You can find a more detailed explanation of this courtesy of Kieran Ward’s post here.

You Are Never ‘Due A Winner’!

The gambling fallacy often catches punters out during both winning or losing runs, when they mistakenly link totally unconnected recent form with future results. You might start to think you are ‘due a winner’ and up stakes accordingly or even give up entirely during a particularly bad run. Continue reading →