Topic: What is harder to predict, randomness or regularity? (Read 912 times)

No, this is clearly not a pattern revealed statistically unless you are observing this for a decade. But we can stop right here as you won't find such a pattern. You can now continue hypothetically, but I wonder how that contributes to answering the question.

A more statistically significant observation would be if over a period of several seasons a team loses 60% of their games when it is raining at a certain level. Or that a formula 1 driver, which is even more statistically significant, never gets onto the podium when it is raining. Those observations are not too far-fetched. I still don't believe you will find such a pattern, but at least it makes somewhat sense. Your example sounds more like esotericism.

If anything of what has been written in the thread were to be true, then just get some AI going and calculate the result of the games. It doesn't work. Gambling will exist forever because it is random, providing the house with an edge! If there was any chance to exploit information against the house, gambling would be dead. If AI can't do it, why would any human being be able to come up with some probabilities that are said to hold true for future events? That's nonsense.

This is simple, but perhaps slightly more profound statistics. Let's say there is a team A that loses all home matches on even dates of odd months in the first ten days of the month with a 75% probability. This is clearly a pattern revealed statistically. But we do not understand the reason for this phenomenon. And if we did, we would most likely be able to improve the statistics of predictions. Let's say we have found out that there is a certain event B that often occurs on the specified dates and can affect the team's play. And if we carefully analyze these facts, we will find many more interesting things there. Or suppose there are two teams. One of them, playing away, loses to the other team in 75% of cases if the match takes place at one time of year and wins against the same team in 60% of cases, playing away at another time of year. Perhaps we do not always understand it, but it is still a pattern.

Everything you write about is very complicated and most likely will not be useful to the average player.

The average player specializing in sports betting simply will not be able to perform mathematical calculations of such complexity. How in practice can one unravel the pattern underlying randomness?

Personally, I cannot do it. Moreover, I cannot even predict the possibility of such a pattern appearing.

All this is similar to the search for Black Swans (random events according to the method of Nassim Taleb). Yes, one can expect such events to appear. Yes, one can try to make money on this. But how can one identify the pattern of their appearance?

Randomness and regularity may well be a fractal thing. By the way, in the original quote at the beginning of the topic, the mathematician wrote that it is more difficult for him to predict the regularity that underlies the unsolved randomness. And vice versa, randomness that cannot be predicted by definition can be described statistically. After all, a large number of random events that are considered not in isolation, but as a group, allow us to make some productive conclusions about their nature. In other words, a single random event, especially with its own version of deviation from the average, is unpredictable, but generalized random events are more revealing.

The very first reason why I casinos made it possible for gamblers to bet on sports event and potentially make money off it is because the outcome is always random, this is if the outcome of the match or game is not pre-concluded before the game day, which we often will refer to as scripted match or a rigged game.
Without this in place, I would say that the random event, which I believe to mean, unknown outcome, is the hardest to understand, because this is where anxiousness lives, you can literally be shaking with anxiety, in your chair when a football match is about to come to the end, and your favorite team is not producing the expected outcome.

Think of it this way, the football match is coming to an end, and your team is losing, but fortunately, they got awarded with a penalty against their opponent, of which the outcome of this penalty will either make or mere them, imagine how fast your heart will be beating at that moment, because you know not, whether the player will score the penalty or miss it.

Obviously you can predict the outcome better by betting statistical data, i don't think anyone ever claimed that by referring to concept of "luck", but we are talking about monetary outcome when we do that. And when you bet on a team that has with higher probability to win, betting odds are just lower, so in fact risk / reward ratio stays more or less the same by betting totally randomly.

So it's not really a question of prediction, but question of profitability. Also, i wouldn't want to debate a famous mathematician on this one, but his concept of bad or good "luck" seem to differ from my concept for the term "luck", or you are using it in different context.

I recently thought about it myself, that I always try to find patterns in different things, and the most important thing is that I understood it. Even if all the events happened independently of each other. Perhaps it is my love for mathematics or something else that could be the reason for this. But now I am not attached to this and understand that many events could just be an accident and should not be taken seriously.

It was always difficult to make predictions and I noticed that if a person guessed the outcome of an event by chance, he may think that he figured out a pattern, but this will not be the case. In general, all I understood is that you can not be blinded and believe in different patterns, because they could just be coincidences.

This is why we will hear a lot of beliefs because people are creating patterns, even if there's nothing. Let us put it this way, we can only predict the number of goals for each match, but we can't guarantee that our prediction will happen 100%. That is why, it is called prediction. It is the randomness of things and no one is holding the crystal ball to know the next outcome.


You can also find some pattern, but it doesn't mean, it will happen again. Same team, same members - still, you can't guarantee that you will get the same score. There are other underlying factors involved such as strategies, actual physical conditions of the athletes, maybe unknown injuries and the list goes on. Hence, you can never get the same results even if you are considering the same team.

At least with the non-random events there is some sort of a pattern I would suspect so that you can come up with some degree of the likelihood of winning but with random events that can take place there is no way to foresee this so I think its quite interesting that non-random events are much harder to understand and predict I would think that it ought to be the opposite. Maybe one day I will understand them both much better but for now I will continue with my strategy of "winging it" hahahahhh

Well, you're already exaggerating the randomness factor too much. There is always a chance, but not so much that in some large sample of matches it does not depend on fundamental factors at all. If that were the case, then it would make no sense for teams, for example, to buy good players. Here is an example from a recent one: Atletico Madrid vs. Leganes. You can't say that the result of the match is an accident. If the role of chance was as great as you claim, then all bookmakers would have gone bankrupt long ago.

If it's easy to get such information, THEN it's probably easier for the Cabal behind the sports betting industry to get that information first and change the odds, therefore removing ALL possibilities for plebs like us to have an edge/advantage against them. Compare THAT to trading actual cryptocurrency markets, the plebs probably have more "edge" there, no? Because we can merely buy the best asset, Bitcoin, and HODL without doing anything else and we will STILL outperform most of the active traders.

Regularity or non-random events are indeed more difficult to predict. No two games are going to be similar and if they are, then it will make it into the news. Such team makes x number of goals in consecutive matches or x number of goals in the quarter finals every season.

Random events are more common but the market for prediction is limited and making the prediction of higher than x number of goals to be scored, is fairly a no brainer to most people, whether that is the correct or wrong outcome is a different question.

Human minds try to find patterns everywhere even when it does not exist.

It seems just a random event we know Sportsbet takes a lot of viewers and players too so people can easily notice if there's something fishy and off on the current game, like choking with the first goal, playing clumsy and etc. Its easy to check their behavior and also its easy to notice if you know a well-known team that they didn't play like they used to. But base on the statistics came from their scores you can makes an assumption or prediction with the score.

If I am not mistaken, there is a topic that touches on the issue of randomness and regularity. My opinion is that I consider all events random and the search for regularities is a waste of time and a futile exercise. How can you predict an event in a match? No, it is impossible. If you manage to win something on bets, then it is nothing more than luck and fortune. Personally, this is the only way I see the situation from the outside and I try to stick to this line.

Regularity is easy to be found and analyzed through history data of the player or team you are looking into. Randomness, on the other hand, is unpredictable exactly because its name already says it's random. And if it's random, you can't predict it accurately, because anything can happen. And in sports, regularity isn't static, what means past data isn't guarantee of repetitions in the future. You can discover some patterns, but nothing assures such patterns are going to repeat themselves again any time soon.

Gamblers get surprised when the patterns they have been following just don't happen as expected, but that is the nature of sports betting they should be conscious about before engaging on this activity.

I think that says it all there. Personally, I learned that way of thinking when I was trading and reading Wyckoff's books. He says very clearly that sometimes you have to cut losses and lengthen profits. I think these teachings also apply to gambling and sports betting. If we don't make the decision to go for the win (even if it's little), it's the best we can do. Those who risk a lot more are in some way throwing their own luck away, but of course they do these things by wanting more. Sometimes greed makes us lose..

Betting is much more predictable than casino gambling. It's just that the initial data needs to be taken from "fundamental" reasons (team composition, general training, financing, for example, by an advertiser, sponsor, etc.). But not from the search for patterns in who scored how many goals to whom and other similar things in which there is no pattern. There, if desired, you can find imaginary patterns, but this is a deception.

That's what I posted/said. If everything remains constant/the same, then it's probably better to rely on statistical analysis to predict an outcome because of, as you said, the pattern. But the fact/truth is, there are actual events that affect the constantness of the pattern, WHICH, as you also said - "we should analyze these facts" to get a more favorable/higher probability prediction.

I may have been confused in your use of the terminology of regularity and randomness in your OP.

When it comes to sports betting history repeats itself in some cases, which is why checking statistics and previous matches of both teams is very important although this won't always give you the accurate prediction of the game. Football is all about chances , there's a lot that can happen on the pitch that might be unexpected, even the team that the odds are in favour of might happen to miss some opportunities, as a result of this they might end up losing the game. Soccer is a sport filled with a lot of uncertainties.

Because it won't work in such a complex structure as a whole team, where the result is influenced by many factors, and this must be taken into account for both teams. In addition, no matter how perfect everything looks, something unexpected can happen in any match, like a red card, which is impossible to predict in advance. So we can assume the outcome based on our analysis, but in gambling there will always be a probability that cannot be predicted in any way.

This is absolutely true.
That’s why it’s really difficult to predict games at the beginning of a season or competition because you’re sill unaware of the team’s individual performances in that particular season, it is when the teams have both had recent encounters in that particular competition that you’ll be able to make analysis based on their recent performances.

Most times football outcome is not random but at times it appears as though it is random. Being random is on rare occasion, so it won't be logical to see it as random.. Like with the scenerio of Ferguson era with manU and David Moyes, these were different phases of the club history. Ferguson had an outstanding performance with the club then, so any club that was playing against manU at the time never envisaged beating manU with ease and back to back at random but that was more of manU bizarre experience with Moyes. So also the history of Germany and Brazil then that happened randomly. In essence, the randomness of football is not always predetermined, it just by chance and season. What can contribute to the randomness is lack of preparedness and team spirit. If a team loses concentration at the field of play then they could concede advantage to the opponent.

I think that finding the result of money line is always the hardest except cases where the odds are low like 1.30 and so on. It is always easier to increase odds to your favor when you go for Asian handicap bets, for example going for an underdog with high odds and to make the odd low by choosing a + 3 odd in Asian handicap meaning the game starts with 3 goals advantage for the underdog and the favorite needs to score 4 goals for you to lose the bet, if they score 3 you get money back. I think this is the best option to make randomness not so random anymore.

Sports, especially football has little or no randomness and very little regularity with respect to team form in it. Because a football team might be doing well across the years defeating another without much issues and all of a sudden, coach is changed, better players bought and they start performing well and outdone their previous oppressors. A tactical example, earlier in the Premier league, A whole Liverpool was defeated in Annfield by Nottingham forest which is viewed as a little team. On the basics of randomness or regularity, it's a walk away for Liverpool, but Nottingham forest were very intentional about that match and defended their only goal till the last minute.

I think it has a lot to do with being intentional and not much with either randomness or regularity.

In my opinion, a random event is not only difficult, but also impossible to predict.

That is why it is called a random event. I will give an example from a textbook on the mathematical theory of probability. There is an ideal metal coin (without any physical defects). When tossing this coin, two outcomes are possible - heads or tails. In this example, the event of heads is a random event. The probability of its occurrence is 50 percent. We cannot predict the occurrence of this event with a probability of more than 50 percent.

Similar random events exist in sports. It makes no sense for a player to try to predict them. It makes much more sense to concentrate on the analysis of non-random events.

I assume that the author of the quote I gave meant that randomness becomes a pattern when we begin to understand the internal mechanisms of it. The same applies to statistics, but statistics is only a tool that helps us better understand the internal mechanisms of a pattern. I can illustrate this with the following conditional example. Let's say there is a team A that with a probability of 75% loses all home matches on even dates of odd months in the first ten days of the month. This is clearly a pattern revealed statistically. But we do not understand the reason for this phenomenon. And if we understood, we would most likely be able to improve the statistics of predictions. Let's say we found out that there is a certain event B that often occurs at the specified times and can affect the team's play. And if we carefully analyze these facts, we will find many more interesting things there.

Since I am asked, I say it depends on the sports events because some sporting events are random, while some sporting events are regular being that the outcome for some of sporting events could be within a range and not anything specific so that is totally a random something to me. Well if you are giving options for instance in football between two teams to either win lose or draw, the outcome looks more regular to me and I can categorize that as a regular event so I think that regular outcomes are more easily to predict.

You took everything he said out of context. That’s not the meaning of a fixed game. A fixed match is when players or referee has been bribed by interested parties to ensure that the results are in favor of a particular team. Football betting is not random, you get to choose which team you want to bet on/against and you do so with information and data about the players and the teams competing. It’s not random like slot games because you statistics you can analyze before placing your bets.

Yes, that's what I've said that you can pull back and take the money with you but with a small deduction. That's better when the randomness has struck you and upon realizing that you're no longer at the upper hand, that's what you have to do.

So, as long as they're allowing you to do so and you're right that there are certain period of times that it's allowed. But then, when the bookies have already closed the calls and you can no longer withdraw the bet, that's for you to take that and see how the randomness in sportsbetting will give you some lessons.

I believe if "non-random events" are the same/constant, then it's probably better to rely on statistics to make a decision of winning with a higher probability. That quote mentions "to understand its inner workings", which probably describes those "non-random events" that have changed within the teams, the games, or the players?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Statistics are easier to understand because they are based on past data. Non-random events' effects on randomness are probably harder to evaluate.

Randomness is hard to predict and in as much as some team are already known for have a best performing players, everything football season is not usually the same for all team. In this season, team A could have victory over team B a couple times, while in the next season, if you judge by the previous seasons, you could just be totally wrong, because the reverse could happen.

There are bookies that are allowing the cashout option. That is, if you can still cashout because they have certain period only that you can avail such option. If the game is already very near like few hours or so, they remove this feature. So if you already knew something  that there are some changes in the game, better check your bets immediately.

Well from my point of view, ill say sport games are random because.  Supposing we have a single man game whereas only a two players are allowed to play then the probability of any random thing happening would change to non-random. As long as humans are involved in sport game, it is safe to say that it is random because mistakes could be made, and we are not programmed to make same repetition exactly like the previous game. Hence no sport game is based on non-random results, most especially football. There are several times where we see Southampton who is always favorite to relegate in a season plays with a big team or team within the champions league zone and wins the game. And its possible the big team might have been on a wining strike for a month plus.

The quote you post seem to be talking about black swans, events that come out of nowhere and that can have a terrible effect, so for example we know that roughly every decade the world economy suffers a major crisis, but what we do not know is how that crisis will come to be, and the most recent crisis was caused by the pandemic, something that no one saw coming, so I get what he is talking about since those kind of events are impossible predict or even to prepare for.

Those factors that you have mentioned like having some injuries prior to the game is truly random. Some news are releasing that hours to minutes before the game so, if you've placed a bet days prior to the game and then that happened, it's a random thing to decide on.

Whether you pursue on that bet or not as long as it's not happening yet, you can always pull it back but with a lesser amount but at least you're able to save the money that you have worked on especially if it's the star player that isn't going to play on that match you're looking forward to win some bucks.

Well, it's a literal gamble so if it's on me, it depends on the situation and how urgent that money is but if it's just some spare. Who knows if that money could be more than a double or get a half of it based on the odds.

Firstly I don't see sports as a random event because they are literally planned but what could be referred to as random if we should make considerations would be the activities or the sub events that take place in a sports event.

An example would be with the goals scored in the football game, the number of free kicks, throw in and even goal kicks, ofcourse corner kicks aren't left out but as it has to do with the even of football it self, it's not random because they plan and get it fixed so it's easier to predict a sport happening at a particular time due to the recurrent reoccurrence over a period of time but the randomness in the game that will produce results is actually not an easy thing to predict.

I agree, betting against the favorite is something out of luck and those that bet on it are the ones that likes to gamble and sure like there's a magic that came inside their minds that "what if become lucky and wins the game?". For that reason, a random bet with that doesn't happen at most times but it is not impossible to happen.

Luck would really be always the main determining factor on which even a slightest change of it will really be changing up the whole game completely on which it could neither be that go against or will really be that in line
on what you had predicted. This is why its called betting or gambling in the first place just because there's no way that you could really be able to completely know on what would really be the result of a particular game.

This is why we do have that upset and to those unfortunate conditions like having some possible injuries on which it might lead into that non playing of the ace player or whatever possible happens on a certain game
on which there's no assurance that you could be able to win up on a certain bet just because you do have those kind of high hopes and expectations just because you do able to make or apply the best analysis that you could possibly have. Harder to predict? Doesnt matter on which one you are really that getting involved into but still everything cant be able to determine.

So it would really be that up to you on which you would really be wanting to continue or would really be that completely stopped because you cant really be able to bare it up?

IMO you should never rely on these statistics, like the average number of goals in a match by certain team. This doesn't say anything about the coming match and will only confuse you.

Maybe if that's your goal to bet over or under x  number of goals and you only bet on that in every match, maybe that could help you decide how to bet, but for most people it's going to be useless. I prefer to bet on scores than on over/under bets especially since they pay much worse. If you try to bet on scores by using the average goal statistic you're not going to do very well.

To answer your question, scores are regular only to some extent. For instance MMA fighters are undefeated until they are defeated. The fact that someone has a score of 5-0 doesn't mean they will have 6-0. It's only something you have to factor in your prediction, but all the others will do that too and your prize will get smaller.

That's what we call twists in these games.

Those all of a sudden move that has happened that turned the favor of other team/player into their good fate to win the game is that.

I agree that there's also luck involved in these games and that's why sometimes those odds that have favored the favorite team had turned the other side and made them lose the game.

And to the gambler's side, there's also luck in there and the randomness of that game is hard to predict with analysis because of that twist.

There was no mathematics to show that Germany would trash Brazil. Brazil were the host and they were in good form before the Neymar injury. Nobody expected Germany to win by that margin. That's how football is. You can use all the stats and predict all you want but when the players go into the field anything can happen.

You can use stats to predict a match. How many goals they score, and how many they concede per match, but all those things won't determine your success, you still have to be lucky.
And yeah, there is luck in football. A team can go into the match and everything will go well for them.
PSG last season was lucky against Barcelona. They were losing and Barcelona had already taken the lead then all of a sudden Barcelona got a red car. No mathematics can predict that.

Well, I guess whatever events take place in those matches are random as there's no fixation involved in those but sometimes match fixes do happen or a player who's the top player of Team might get paid a huge sum in order to not perform good but that doesn't happen all the time.

Sometimes even skilled players aren't able to perform well and that's also a random event, and sometimes even the weak players of a team perform better then their top players and that's also random event. So I guess. most events are random and not pre-planned.

I wouldn't say it as a random event, it's the result of skill and one who is playing better in terms of everything will one day so you can't say it's random while the stats gives some insights about the stronger team. Let's say if you are comparing the stats between Team A and Team B and team B scored 4 against the A for all time which is a stat and you can't conclude anything but then you need to include the multiple factors like recent form and only the result from last 10 matches instead of all, playing venue and scores scored in the particular venue which gives better stats to conclude who has the edge than one stat.

Randomness and regularity work in sports, but it's at different times/events. That's why you see a certain prediction which you've deemed sure failing you while the unexpected would work for you. But most times, if the right information is collected and used correctly, regularity may prevail. In all, I don't like relating with the randomness, it's not worth it, and so will I not honour what any mathematician says about sports.

Sport is a live event whose outcome is never 100% certain by any calculation, and it all depends on many updated conditions in which mathematics can't give accurate results. And if one has the needed real-time information and not on mathematic templates, it's highly possible that regularity (as you call it) wins more even though some predictions will definitely fail.

I believe those events which are "random" and go against the average behavior of the team A against Team B are way harder to predict. In the case of the infamous match of Brazil versus Germany, we all could agree there was no bettor on the planned who could have predicted Brazil would underperform in such desastrous way before Germany.
Those "random" events are the result of small actions and decisions which are taken by the players of both teams before and during the match which combine to create the perfect storm for something as unusual as we saw to happen. It could be some within the Brazilian selection were mentally under pressure and Germany did not, or perhaps someone in the Brazilian team did not get enough hours of sleep during the previous night, while all the German selection did. It is a collection of small events giving birth to a huge one and making a lot of people to watch it from beginning to end.

Yeah you are quite right. Sports bet aren't really random in terms of the outcomes although it may sometimes seem unpredictable. Especially in the case of popular games like soccer. Infact it's the lack of that randomness that actually suggests how most casinos usually select their odds for different outcomes of the game. The fact is although sports vets can't be 100% accurately predicted, they can still be to an extent based on team stats and past statistics of the different teams in different games.

If you check the regular odds in casinos like home to win, draw , or away to win you will find out that the team that has a better statistics in that particular sport say soccer has the smallest odd on their wager (for choosing them to win) and this is simply because probability and normal logical reasoning suggests that they would likely win the game. On the other hand the other team that has a lower stats will have the odds for their wager relatively bigger depending on how poor their stats are.

When all of a sudden a team wins despite how well organized the other team is, then I think there is luck in it.
Gascoigne could be right but you always have to look at who is telling the story. 
David Moyes and Ferguson will always tell the story like they are the hero of the story which they meant to make themselves player of the game and the win is not just random.

The favorite team always has the odds of winning. By luck the other team wins, then something must have happened in the middle of the game.

In my opinion, random events are impossible to predict.

Moreover, it is impossible to build a winning strategy on them. The probability of winning when betting on a random event is 50 percent, and in reality it is less due to the commissions of the casino, bookmaker, miner, etc.

Regular (non-random) events are a completely different matter... Regular (non-random) events allow (in theory, and sometimes in practice) to create a winning betting strategy.

What is needed to create a winning betting strategy based on non-random events?

You need insider information about a given event or a correct guess about the internal mechanisms of this event. Often, this is enough to start winning and making a profit.

True. When it comes to sports betting, randomness is the nature of the game, but regularity is not assured, so the game is unpredictable. Because you can't tell what will happen to each team member, even if you bet on a team with greater field capacity and team quality, you are still not certain. Anything can happen - their key player could get hurt or something like that.

So you are betting on a game with hope, and if you are lucky, you win. But you just put out your bet there randomly with random scores and predictions. But while you follow regularity, studying patterns and trends, patterns and trends don't always repeat themselves when it comes to sports.

Team A can play a certain way in a match today and play another way in the match they have tomorrow. So you can't say, "Because they won the game with this pattern or they lost with this pattern, this is what works and this is what doesn't work." So you can't be certain of any.

But I think randomness is a bit harder because regularity - you might notice one thing in a key player that will reoccur for the individual, which doesn't assure you a win in their coming game, but you just got an insight into something. Randomness - you are not sure of anything.

My understanding and experience of betting on sports, especially football, is that the most difficult thing that I faced and felt was a goal that was not predicted, where the goal could have happened accidentally, meaning that it was an own goal that made it a little difficult for me to predict.

Goals like that often happen, especially during corner kicks where when the ball is directed outside it actually goes into the goal by the host himself. I have experienced something like that several times in gambling, when I placed a bet of 2-1, it turned out to be 2-2 in the last minute with an own goal, as long as I was betting that was the most difficult thing for me.

I was struggling with the OP's question and this makes sense to me at least.
Its harder to predict randomness purely because of the nature of it, its random,
anything can happen.

Could we argue that betting against the favourite is betting on a random event
occuring we us winning our bet? while betting with the favourite is predicting
regilarity?

Watching the championship in my country, it is easier for me to say that the victory of the team that is at the top of the table, which will play with a weak team, will be considered a pattern. Talking about the outcome of the game but not about the score will most likely be correct, as it will not look surprising. But if we talk about the opposite, then of course it will be quite strange if a weak team wins the championship. Chance, and it is unlikely that these victories will be natural.

No, that's not the definition of a fixed game, fixed game is when players colluding with each other as who is going to win the match, simply as that. As compare in a games wherein each players are playing skills vs skills and it's hard to see who is going to win until the last buzzer.

And if we talk about fixed match, as far as I know this is only happening in small league, but let's say in a World cup, it's very hard to do that as there are a lot of eyes on your team and why would someone fixed a world cup match? Doesn't make sense. As for the question by the OP, for me it's the regularity that is harder to predict that randomness itself.

That's not how to interpret fixed games, it's not fixed because they're all want to win, it's a fixed game if there's a player or the whole team want to lose. All great players did make mistake, you can't really sure that their performance will always be consistent and score goals.

Just like a team that have a good statistic and shots a lot, but defeated by a team with low possession and only shots few.

Sure they are not. Many factors which effect outcome in sport events are anticipatorily predetermined thus making events biased (^{which is good for us, i.e for those who are inclined to bet on them)} while should the sport events be  random  their outcomes  would be from the even-odd class.

If you say this then we can assumed that the match is a fixed game, because already when a player kicked ball as you said their intention is projected and channeled to specific point but when they ball didn't go that direction which the viewers expected it to go directly then they are assuming it's a mistakes meanwhile it's an intentional acts. This led to a conclusion that most of the matches are directly fixed match, but still there are 50% chances of luck attached to it, and they are also random/nonrandom in it.

Having gone through this what I think is, in the aspect of football and whereas sports it involves regularity cause it's been done on let's say a daily basis and another thing is when players play the ball they are being intentional about scoring a goal which is a priority but then relating this to gambling and saying which is hard to predict I think randomness is abit hard to predict cause something that's static it's hard to predict but when it's otherwise you can make better predictions on how it's gonna be.

For every choice someone makes, one cannot judge them, the important thing is that it does not harm other people and does not go outside the rules. The process in every game always changes quickly, no one can predict it accurately, let alone trying to prevent the same thing from happening again, which is very impossible here.
Random choices are more likely than regular ones which are always considered the right moment, in this case the situation always changes without any bets, this is a process that cannot be predicted on a regular basis.

1.The short answer is only one: they are both hard to predict.
2.There's no point making a comparison between pure randomness and what you are calling 'non-random events'. Actually, I think that comparing them is wrong, because they are working together. There is always a certain percentage of randomness and luck in football, but the percentage is different, because there are other factors, that influence that particular randomness(team lineups, tactics, preparation for the certain match, weather, referees, players getting injured throughout the game, etc.). I'm not a genius mathematician, so I can't make complex calculations and I can't try to predict a football game by using math formulas. Maybe we should find a good mathematician and ask him about this topic.

Randomness has always been harder to predict, though Football may seem non random there are various factors at play that decides winners and losers.
People score own goals not of conscious decision it just happens and the player that caused it didn't plan it
It just happened.
So no matter how it may seem non random
Football like many things in life have some element of randomness.

Well, that's what I'm talking about. You can't predict events with constantly changing data. It really doesn't seem like a possible process. That's why I consider betting more of a random event than seeing a pattern in all of this. It's not a case where you can apply some kind of repeating moments. Does anyone want to see something different in this? Please. No one has the right to judge a person for his particular choice, if it does not harm others.

You can apply mathematics to a set of data. Which means if you want to use past events to your advantage and therefore bet on more than 6 goals because they finish games 4-3 on average, then this means that over time your bets maybe more likely to win when you go with more than 6 goals than when you go with less than 6 goals. But the problem is that the average you have calculated is what you call it: an average. You have calculated it based on plenty of games played between the two teams. Accordingly you have to bet on a large number of games between those teams. Otherwise mathematics don't apply. You can't reach a statistically significant predictor based on an insufficient set of data points.

It is still smarter to go with more than six goals if you intend to play only once. But if you really want to exploit what the data tells you, then you would have to place the bets on my games to come between those two teams. Again, the odds would still be in your favor in a one time event, but standard deviation hits harder.

I love how abstract discussions are brought forth from mundane things like football performances.

Ironic as it may seem, based on what the mathematician wrote, on the contrary, I think random events remain harder to predict than non-random events. Non-random events are there. It's a given. It's available. It's just that it takes a lot more and deeper analysis, study, evaluation, pondering, and so on to understand it all. But the answer is just there waiting for anybody who successfully solves the puzzle.

Whereas, random events don't have explanations and formulae. Otherwise, they aren't random. The most that you can do with them is guess and be lucky that you're right. Random events don't have eureka moments.

So when I lost bet Indonesia team last night, I assume that sport betting is random events. As I know Indonesia quality team is better than China, Indonesia can draw away when meet saudi and Australia, while china lost at their home when meet that team. In math, Indonesia should have won easily, because saudi was defeat them on 1-2 on their home. But, again, this is random, our calculate isn't always expected as we hope.

You ask very interesting questions. If you think about it, a random event can be any event that we cannot predict in advance. This definition applies very well to betting. At the same time, it is random for us, but in general, of course, it has its reasons. If two teams of equal strength play, then we will call the victory of the strong team natural, because we can, as it seems to us, predict it. And we call the victory of the weak team random, because this victory is impossible to predict. Also, any injuries on the field, the removal of players, unusual behavior of referees - these are all random events that we cannot predict. As soon as we learn to predict them, they will immediately become natural. Sometimes, based on statistics, we can say approximately how many goals will be scored in a game. This is quite natural. But who exactly will score these goals and what the exact score will be - these are random events.

This is why there are so many people who love sports like football. It's unpredictable!

I think regularity is much harder to predict just like what was said in your quote. In regularity, we are expecting something to be reached and most of the time it won't happen while the randomness is what makes us win. Different teams, different opponents, different days, different environments, everything could impact the game and we cannot know everything about that. Even the flight, weather, and trips of the players can affect their day and it might also cost them their game which also means that the regular thing that they do can always change.

It's not football but I do remember the Detroit Pistons (NBA) before they won the championship in 2004, in most of their game if the opponent would not score over 100 points then they win. It's like an automatic thing but still, the total score is not easy to predict because Detroit could go crazy and score high so "total under" bets could also lose.

In a match with random results or not this still has a role in it.
Let's say you bet on the favorite team and the opponent is a weak team, maybe here it is said that random is impossible because of the regularity where the favorite team will win, but sometimes the results are random as examples of several other matches.

But in betting, it will definitely involve luck and it cannot be entirely skill... In sports it does rely on skill including the game but the results will not be like that... Sometimes randomness plays a role in the results.

Very well said there, I think the reason why football games are mostly often refer to as unpredictable e sport is because if the unavailability of fixed match or scripted as you said, and I thinks even in the area of analysis before staking the bets, sport bets have a way of disappointing even the most sure prediction so having that statical knowledge alone can't make the most difference at some point.

So one need to get highly lucky to be able to speculate and predict rightly in most cases, because most often than none, one need to rely on luck to be able to win in sport bets.

Both are hard but then if it's about being harder then randomness is obviously the harder thing to predict. While with regularity, you have the pattern and study to make to see how the regularities are being done. While the randomness of a game or a player based on the situation that they're facing during the live game, that's something that you'll never expect to happen and see for which twists are becoming common. You'd see that most games are spontaneous and they are harder to predict.

Randomness is harder to predict and bet on, and going further, we should know that there are different kinds of randomness; there are the regularly random and the irregularly random events.

Regularly random events are events that are random but happen in a regular pattern that is predictable, while irregularly random events are random events that happen in a pattern that is unpredictable. Sports, IMO, can be categorized as a regularly random event because, although it is a sport that happens in a regular pattern, the outcome when it comes to betting on it is always random.

The outcome of football games can be determined by both random and non-random events. It is easier to understand non-random events because you can easily locate statistics about any club on the internet. With this information, one can easily place a bet. It is on record that Arsenal have defeated Manchester City more than any club in the EPL. So I can confidently place a bet that the Gunners will win the Cityzen regardless of the squad they possess. Random events simply depend on luck and you don't need to do anything about it. I don't understand why Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia and still won the World Cup. I can't figure out why Cameroon also beat Brazil in the same competition.      

all depends on the prediction and pattern of the game in my opinion if in football, if the match is carried out fairly then the results will be seen as random events, because the players really play to find real victory, but we cannot determine whether the football match is random or non-random for football it is difficult to predict, unlike the dice game which is clearly random

sorry, but in reality football is often used as gambling and sometimes everything is arranged, we are sure that this club will win but there are gaps in the match being arranged by the referee, it is very clear who wants to win, and usually the organizers have arranged everything and it is borne by the referee,

There is a flaw in this reasoning from the beginning. It is impossible to calculate average values based on such small samples. It is for this reason that they are not even a pattern. Therefore, the average values do not make predictions any easier. To find a pattern, you need a sample of at least hundreds of games, and, moreover, unchanged teams. This is impossible in reality.

Pretty sure the quote already said it, mathematics can calculate averages and whatnot but there's probably an infinite number of events that can affect the result, not just luck. It being random or not really depends on whether or not you know about it really imo. Like, it can't exactly be random if Team A is performing poorly if you know that their star player had an accident. It just purely depends on what YOU know.

Ofc, there's some that can easily be known, some that can't, and I'd say it's pretty obvious to take action when you know something happened, compared to when you don't know. Just from my sample, pretty sure someone who knows would be able to easily identify that Team B suddenly has higher chances because of Team A's star player being absent.

Random wouldn't define any sports but rather uncertain or indefinite as each player's gameplay would matter in any sports as their skills and practice will be taken into account to the outcome of the match but it wouldn't provide the exact result they wanted. One team maybe stronger or better than their opposing team but the outcome may still not go into their favor as there are multiple factors that may affect a match.

So yeah, any sports including football isn't a random outcome but rather an uncertain and indefinite game.

You shouldn't bet just based on average goal per match in one season or all season because it's not accurate.

Coach, players, home/away, and the opponents are really important, you should calculate the average goal per match using these criteria. Let's say you want to bet a match where it will held in away and face strong opponents. If both of the coach and the players are same, you should check the match that also played in away and face strong opponents.

Random event is harder to predict, do you bet on Europa League or Europa Conference League? try to bet there if you think random event is easier.

Players often do not try to separate randomness or regularity of events in a match, but analyze it as statistical indicators. For example, one team scored 25 goals in 10 rounds, another team (their opponent in the upcoming match) missed 21 goals in 10 rounds.

Based on these indicators, we can conclude that the first team has a good attack, and the second has a bad defense, the first score an average of 2 goals per match, and the second miss the same amount, but these indicators are average, it is clear that in one match they can score 3 goals and in another only 1, but this is just one of the indicators that can help us decide on a future bet and helps determine what to bet on.

I would still classify it as a random event rather than a pattern. And why? Tell me, colleagues, who among you can predict at what moment a specific player will twist his ankle, i.e. get a serious injury, and so on. I don't think any of us can do it. A banal coincidence and nothing more. Yes, one in a billion people will be able to guess by chance, but this also cannot be classed as a pattern. I think that this person will never be able to do it again.

Exactly!
I think people may have misunderstood what "random" really means. In gambling, random means the absence of intentions or specific target or goal to achieve just like the slot games, wherein the only thing to achieve is to win no matter how and no matter how much, with no skills, analysis, and any kind of mental and physical matter that would influence the result.
When we analyse a match in sports, we don't only rely on statistics and averages of the teams and their individual players, but we also consider a lot of different things like injuries, player emotions, news around the league (drama), rotations, player/coach/staff relations, and a lot of different things that makes as think analysing who's gonna win or lose in match is random, but it's actually not.

Generally sport betting indeed is not random because to gets good results from this game people cannot rely on their luck to win the bets because analysis is required but sometimes there was some of random events happened especially in soccer matches and this event is unpredictable and usually most people didn't expect random results happened on the particular matches which makes most people lost their bets from these events so that's why in my opinion random events is hard to predicted compared to regular events and for an example for random event is i think in World Cup 2022 nobody will expect Argentina lost from Saudi Arabia on group phase and other example is i think Manchester United fans never thought their team will be humiliate by Liverpool with final scores 7-1 last year

Perhaps it is more likely that there is a luck factor that cannot be predicted, even weak teams or those that often lose against team B but can win when they are lucky, luck could be because the opponent's mainstay player is not fit or other factors that are indeed unexpected.
Not only in football but also in other sports, for example where player A often loses when facing player B and player B often loses against player C, regularly when C faces A, C should win but what often happens is the opposite because there are random or invisible factors that are difficult to predict.

With sports, luck is involved.

You can't tell if a team is ready for whats coming, either one has an headache or just weak for the day you can't tell, and they won't talk because of the spotlight, they want to be out there so they will manage.

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It would have been a different thing if you are to play the game all by yourself, you can figure out why you lose, you will instantly accept that it is your fault for being weak, mind you, these players tried their best, but the audience won't see it this way, putting blames on the team, goalkeeper or even the coach.

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Everything in the world is hard to predict, even if you are in control yourself you won't know if you will win or lose, until its over.

Just for clarity, could you give us an example of random and non-random events? I’m not really into football, so I’m not sure if what I’m thinking matches what you mean. I’m just trying to get this straight from you, since you’re the OP, to help everyone contribute more effectively to the discussion–because I have a feeling this is going to be a long thread!

The reason why it's very tough to predict correct score is basically because the past scores doesn't always reflect with the current game and in some way, you still have to find a way of predicting the outcome of whatever game you've chosen to be independent of the last head to head encounter. For sports betting, most times it's not all about randomelnes or regularity. It's about the team that's in Thier best of form and that have better results when you look at thier recent games. I would always choose a team based on the quality in the current lineup I'm projecting they will bring out in the match in comparison to the quality in the lineup they're going against. Other factors like the formation to be used and who is playing home or away can also come into consideration in the long run but you can't be all too perfect with your prediction so you just have do the little analysis you can do and let the result fall into place.

For a team or an opponent to win in a game takes skills, practice and the intention to be accurate and win, so I'l agree that getting results is not random. Mathematical calculations is involved in sports, a coach, the team and the individual players needs to calculate the chances of their team scoring, trying to figure out where their opponent are vulnerable then capitalize on it to win. A better team has more chances to win in a game because they're better prepared so it's precision rather than random circumstances that gives wins. But the luck factor can change everything, a single mistake or gap in communication can affect the team's preparation.

I find that regularity or non-random events are much harder to predict. While randomness has its own complexity, it's often accounted for through probabilities and averages, as in your sports example with goals. But non-random patterns? Those require deeper insight, going beyond mere numbers. It’s about understanding human psychology, team dynamics, strategy, and even intangibles like momentum or pressure. As the quote mentions, it’s not just luck when teams like Germany capitalize on Brazil’s collapse, or when a coach’s strategy brings out the best in their team consistently.

This is true and I will agree. The correct answer to Julien_Olynpic question is that sport events are not random at all. If talking about randomness, it is better to talk about casino games. But which is even difficult than being random because there is house edge also which will favour the casino.

In my opinion, random events are much more difficult because even though we have any greatness in analyzing and predicting, we will always experience unexpected things where all of these analyses and predictions end in failure that never match.
Sports always show different results because the quality of the game and performance of each team cannot really be maintained in the long term and the quality of the players will also experience decline and improvement depending on the condition of the players themselves.
Football betting will not always be easy to predict even though all the statistics that exist can sometimes show good results to bet on, it just that in football there are some things that can be considered mysteries that make it difficult for everyone to bet well and win.
For example, one of the best team plays very impressively in competition A but they perform poorly for competition B, this is real thing that always makes one of the randomness and regularity as subject that cannot be used for certain in predicting match results.

That's really interesting. That lies in the mass misunderstanding of what randomness in sport really is, up on the surface, random situations like a lucky goal or an injury. They are hard to predict because they distort the expected flow, but the more you dig in, The more consistent the model, the more appealing it will be; for example, a team's performance in pressure or the mental toughness of a player.

In sports, though, statistics give us averages. But psychology is often not taken into account. The 'human element' which plays a huge role in random events is found to be non-random. Won the famous Brazil-Germany World Cup championship. It was not just an accidental failure in Brazil's defense. Psychological attacks occur under intense pressure. And Germany was weak enough to have the advantage at that time. That is what makes non-random events difficult to predict. This involves many factors, such as team chemistry, mental health, and decision-making under pressure. which is difficult to quantify

To me, this makes the sports really interesting and unpredictable. However much it is random, how to do it, how to get it without blindly. Even best predictions are undermined by unexpected recovery periods or failures, so while randomization can be difficult, But problem of nonrandom understanding often seems very general.


I totally agree with you sports betting isn't a matter of chance! The way players play, and the way we bet surely involves skill, strategy and intent. Take in the case of analysis for a team or an individual player. Past performance statistic and current form. All of these are clues to possible outcomes. Players and teams don't depend solely on luck. Preparation, strategy, execution are all important.

However, I would argue that even play cannot be considered a random activity. Yet, unpredictability plays a role that we cannot neglect. Sometimes, even the greatest teams, or for that matter, even players face surprises sometimes-vague injuries, adverse weather conditions, or unexpected changes. Some of the predictions may go wrong, such as Argentina's victory for World Cup, for instance. Yes, they are one of the strongest teams. But luck and the unexpected can always change everything in one flicker of an instant. For after all, I believe sports betting is really about finding balance with knowledge and understanding that things are just not in our hands. The combination of skill, preparation, and a little bit of luck that is what makes this so exciting.

Of course, randomness is the one harder to predict. Regularity has more stability and we can follow patterns easier compared to randomness where you are like shooting blindly into the sky hoping it lands somewhere where you want it. Each match is different and there are factors that can affect what we perceive is the expected results of the match. Basically with randomness, you get it right 1 out of 10 but with regularity you get it wrong 1 out of 10. Regularity, despite irregularities here and there from time to time, will still be easier to predict because it has more explainable pattern behaviors. If a team performs well on an average, it is easier to predict that they will continue to do so in the next few matches as well.

i wouldn't say the sports bets are random, there is luck involved, but each time a player kicks a ball he does it with intention and with a propose, he isn't kicking the ball just to random places. We have as a good example the world cup, i don't think Argentina won on a random way, some players and some teams are better than others, and those are the ones who have a better chance to win.

So, for me the sports aren't random at all. There is skill and intention involved.

If a match is not fixed and not scripted, that means it is a random event. Sports are not fixed or scripted which means it is not a non-random event but a random even.  There is nothing harder to understand about sport but predicting what would be the outcomes at times  may not be accurate. That is why there are sport betting that offer such service to make money.

What do you think is harder to predict, randomness or regularity? When I write about randomness, I mean data that statistics take into account, but which cannot always be explained. If you analyze sports matches between two teams and look at the statistics of goals scored in different games, you will find that Team A scores an average of 3 goals per match against Team B. And Team B scores an average of 4 goals per match against Team A. However, it is difficult to rely on average figures. After all, in each specific game, the number of goals scored is more or less random.
One famous mathematician, who wrote a book about football from a mathematical point of view, put it this way:


So what is harder to understand about sports in general, and football in particular – random events or non-random events?