Why should bettors never chase losses?

“Don’t chase losses” is probably something that most bettors have in their minds, especially when they are undergoing a ‘dry spell’ where most of their wagers eventually lead to having their money down the drain. And of course, most bettors recognize that searching desperately for a rebound in betting is not a sustainable strategy which can bring long-term profits, not to say that it can also lead to very big short-term losses.

In practice, the notion that bettors should not chase losses means adopting a more conservative and prudent behaviour when losing streaks are experienced or when bettors have lost some bets in a row. It means that they should be very careful and conscious in picking only those bets offered by totalizatori Latvijā that have value or those bets for which they have an edge.

Further, in practice avoiding chasing losses means being more aware that betting is not about luck, but mostly about strategy. But too often, many bettors have come to a point where they might struggle with stopping chasing losses. The desire to get back at a ‘bet’ and continue wagering in order to win back their money often prevails and in the end they keep on betting and betting up until they see their bankroll decrease.

But, if they manage to understand how chasing losses not only is chasing luck, it is also damaging their broader betting skills, their betting strategy and therefore, their profit-making ability, then they would more easily resist the often burning desire to rebound.

Chasing losses distorts bettors’ ability to make effective judgements and choices when wagering.

If you have ever heard about confirmation bias, then this is it and you need to know that it is one of the most critical mistakes in betting. If a bettor decides to chase losses, he is most likely eager to quickly regain the lost money and so he is likely to make poor decisions.

He will most probably select an event for which he has some opinion or belief formed in advance, and then look for every information that confirms this belief, without even looking at other information which might in fact reveal a stronger likelihood for the opposite outcome.

How does this influence betting? Well, simply by making the bettor more accustomed to absorbing information that only confirms his own thinking and rejecting any other information that is against his thinking.

But this is detrimental in betting, because betting is about systematic evaluation of information so as to obtain an edge. Betting is not arbitrary – or at least it should not be an arbitrary, impulse action- and everything that leads towards this direction is deemed to lead to failure.

Then there is something else, which you also might have heard about. It is the outcome bias. People often judge a decision only after they know the outcome. If picking a bet for example leads to profit, then bettors will think that there was a good decision making there, that led to winnings.

And this might be the case when the decision is based on analysis. When, however, the decision was driven by the need to rebound after experiencing losses, then it certainly leads to wrong conclusions. Judging by the outcome will make them blind to errors.

Chasing losses does not always mean more losses. There are chances that a bettor wins back his money. But if he evaluates this action based on the outcome (winning money) and comes to appraise his decision for placing the bet on his skills, neglecting that it was a poor decision in the first place because it was based on chasing losses, then he runs the risk of being unable to make effective assessment of his skills, abilities and to develop a good betting strategy.