Why 'experience' can be deadly for your bankroll.

I have been searching the internet for other handicappers and their claim of having 'experience' in sports handicapping. Experience has always been an abused term when used to differentiate betwen good and bad of anything. In job employment situations many organizations will choose an experienced employee over an educated one on the assumption that the experienced employee is more capable of handling the 'real world'. When it comes to sports handicapping, there is a possible argument that experience, as it works in the real world, may prove to be an major handicap.

An experienced individual who has been in any field for over 10 years has a tendency not to stay on the leading edge of thought and practice. There is plenty of research to back this up with many field of practice such as medicine and law. That is, many experienced practitioners of medicine fall into easy ruts where they find it simply profitable to do as they have always done and ignore new ways of doing things. I see this problem with 'experienced' handicappers.

The increased power of computers has allowed the use of computing skills and computer analysis to play a major role in the handicapping of sporting events. What you will find is that the most experienced handicappers refuse to use computer to model formulas for sports handicapping. The reason they do this is because they were trained using different tools. To them a computer is a evil machine or a dumb machine. The argument often used is that a computer can't think, only humans. "Besides I have 20 years of experience in this field, I know what I'm doing". The problem with that statement is that it is deadly.

I am a trained scientist with a Ph.D form a top 20 research university in this country. I was given the greatest opportunity in the world when some of the researchers I have known introduced me to the power of mathematical modelling using computers. I am also much younger than the average handicapper at 33 years old. I was raised with a computer and do not fear their use. I also understand that humans are non-rational decision makers who often make severe mistake and are basically biased in their decisions.

For a handicapper not to use mathematical modelling is a major mistake. A computer will outperform any human, over time, assuming the computer is given accurate core data. There is simply no dispute to this. Ask the American Medical Association who challenged a computer disease diagnostic program created by Stanford University. This computer out performed the top doctors in the world in its ability to diagnose diseases based on typed in symptoms. In fact, the more experienced doctors performed the worse of all. The lesson, experience is a dangerous trap.

Experience tempts us to ignore our obvious biases. One classic example comes from how we make decisions under situations of loss or gain. Under situations of loss (e.g. you have lost money this past week) we tend to become risk-seekers (e.g. tend to take larger risks). Under situations is gain (e.g. you have gained money this past week) we tend to become risk-avoiders (e.g. tend to take fewer risks). If you plot how handicappers follow bad days you notice that they tend to put more stars on picks, offer more picks, and tend to choose the option that provides the higher payoffs. That is, even 'experienced' handicappers tend to become more risky after bad weeks. This pattern is potentially deadly to anyone who wants a sustained and profitable season-long profit.

Questions? email at professor@hrmgt.com