Dunning–Kruger Effect
Have you ever heard of the Dunning–Kruger effect?
The effect is a ‘cognitive bias’ in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average.
A classic example of this is talent shows.
How often have you watched people with no gift whatsoever proudly walk on stage, and then expose themselves to ridicule when the audience realises they either have nothing exceptional to offer or indeed turn out to be the world’s worst singer for that week? It is usually highly embarrassing for everyone involved and sometimes confidence damaging for the poor artist concerned.
Have you ever asked yourself why these people dare to go up on stage in the first place? Why do they not recognise their own lack of ability and consequently make a fool of themselves?
The answer is the Dunning–Kruger effect and so-called ‘incompetent’ people will:
- tend to over-estimate their own level of skill;
- fail to recognise genuine skill in others;
- fail to recognise the extremity of their inadequacy;
- recognise and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill
Unfortunately, although there is no scientific evidence, statements 1 and 3 probably apply to the majority of bettors who:
…tend to over-estimate their own level of skill, and fail to recognise the extremity of their inadequacy.
Is your head or your heart still following me?
Those of you still with the greed disease will probably be saying to yourselves that those poor unfortunate ‘incompetents’ are the other people, but not you.
What then are the signs of really competent people?
How can you check that you do not belong to the group of unskilled people who suffer from illusory superiority, but that you are truly one of the persons who are skilled and competent to carry out the job in hand?
Four Stages of Competence
Check out the four stages of competence:
- Unconscious Incompetence
The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognise the deficit. - Conscious Incompetence
Although the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognise the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. - Conscious Competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. - Unconscious Competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become “second nature” and can be performed easily.
Compare Yourself
- Compare your own level of understanding, for example with the content of the Soccerwidow blog.
- How many articles and which subjects did you find difficult or even impossible to comprehend?
- Have some of the articles been about a topic you have never thought about before?
- Upon which rung of the competence ladder above would you rate yourself?
If you believe that you are on stage 3 or 4 of the four stages of competence:
Do you think that you could write a content-rich article along the same lines as some of the mathematical articles in Soccerwidow? Or, perhaps any other topic in the betting world, something of high quality showing off your knowledge and skills?
If your answer to this is an immediate and straight “yes”, then you are more than likely already on your way to becoming a successful bettor.
However, if you find many of Soccerwidow’s articles too difficult to understand, and/or they are far beyond your skills set, then you really need to ask yourself if your dream of getting rich with betting is realistic.
Are you living with false beliefs?
Think of the time you will need to learn all these new skills.
However, if you have neither the time or the will to succeed then really, my honest advice is STOP BETTING!!! as you will never achieve success and by continuing to bet, you will be forever throwing away money and time better spent on other things! Please think again.
So, what makes you a successful bettor, or a loser?
It is your knowledge & skills set, or the lack of it!
“What makes a successful bettor?-knowledge and skills” is the quote given above.
hmmm.
There are millions of knowledgable,mathematically-minded people who have,over the last
50 years,tried to make regular profits from gambling
and the overwhelming majority have failed!!!
The most important thing you need(and which most people will never have)………..
is the ability to go against the crowd.
You can have all the mathematical knowledge in the world-you can be another Einstein-
But if you don’t have the ability to take your hard-earned money and bet it against the team that everyone else is betting on then your skills are rendered useless.
Now,I daresay that soccer widow might reply that that is precisely what she means by maths and skills so I say,
The amount of mathematical ability you need to profit from gambling is minimal!
By contrast,the kind of personality that makes you question everything combined with a modicum of intelligence and self-awareness is much underrated
.
As for other skills,basic money management skills can be learned in an hour
Now,let me give you an incredibly simple tip that will make you a profit from betting on football IMMEDIATELY!!!
Its so simple that you won’t believe it can possibly work-indeed I suspect soccer widow won’t believe it.
Every week,take note of every televised game where the outsider is 3-1 or more to win the game.
Watch the game until either the favourite scores or it becomes apparent that the favourite is on top.
If the outsider is playing well after 20 minutes(without actually scoring,the score still being
0-0) bet on them!
Additionally,watch Sky soccer saturday and listen to radio reports and commentaries whenever there are games.
There will often be times when the reports say that the outsider is doing very well(a good example is Swansea at Arsenal on Saturday)-once again-bet on them!!
In case you didn’t know,you can bet in running on many big games nowadays and of course most tv games.
The above tip should make you 6-8% profit a season.
I won’t go into how much you should bet-thats up to you-as is the issue of whether you
should hegde if the outsider takes the lead.
Now you may say that this isn’t “going against the crowd” since you are betting on a team that is doing well.
Weeelll,it is insofar as very few people do this
And,I suspect,even fewer-allowing for the far smaller number in existence-mathematicians!
Hi,I have only just discovered this wonderful site.
I am really,really impressed and I love the fact that its written by an intelligent businesswoman who admits to not seeing the attraction of football!
And because I love this site I wish to contribute to it ……but in,um,an unusual way.
I say unusual because I suspect that most of my posts will challenge some of the things that soccerwidow has written.
My aim in doing so is primarily to help people to make money from gambling…..
“Are you living with false beliefs?”is the question posed above.
In my experience,even experts-especially mathematically-minded ones are!!
great article