TIMBER
One of the most common betting mistakes is to confuse specialist knowledge in sports with a specialty in sports betting. This error is illustrated by the proliferation of ex-professional sports stars that become betting tipsters or self-proclaimed experts, and is neatly described by the “Green Lumber Fallacy”.
One of the most successful traders to ever buy and sell green lumber – which is freshly cut wood – actually had no idea what he was trading. He spent his entire green lumber career believing the product was just wood painted green, and not newly cut trees.
The term “Green Lumber Fallacy” was coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his recent book ‘Antifragile’, where he outlined a second similar situation: a star Swiss Franc trader who’s inability to locate Switzerland on the map didn’t hinder his ability to make money trading its currency.
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Todd’s Take: Rarely do you see a topic this important articulated as well as it has been in this article. One of the biggest misconceptions in betting is that just because you never played a sport, don’t know every player, and can’t recite a laundry list of stats you’ll never be successful betting it. Does having all these tools help you long term? To a certain extent yes but paralysis by analysis is a very real challenge every bettor has had to overcome at some point in his career. I talk to fans all the time that know their teams inside and out yet couldn’t pick a winner in those games if their lives depended on it. If only knowing teams made for successful bettors every beat writer would be rich given his insider access to a particular team. Part of what makes bettors successful is understanding market movement, situations, and the simple realization someone out there will always know more. Hubris is a big component in all of this as well, recognizing you aren’t the greatest handicapper to ever walk the earth allows you to learn from defeat rather than directing blame to players or officials. Managing risk along with expectations is an even bigger part of gambling than just knowing the players. There’s no worse feeling than going 7-3 over a 10 game stretch but not showing a profit because you didn’t manage things correctly. Before you embark on this journey of sports gambling in any capacity realize just knowing teams is only a fraction of what it takes to be successful over the long haul.
