How I Beat Recency Bias (And How It Almost Destroyed My Bankroll)

Spring 2023. The Lakers had just won six straight games. They looked unstoppable. LeBron was cooking. Their odds to make the Finals had shortened from +400 to +150.

I hammered them.

They lost four of their next five. I lost my bets.

This is recency bias in action: overweighting recent events when predicting future outcomes. It's one of the most common cognitive errors in sports betting, and I've fallen victim to it dozens of times.

Here's why recency bias is so dangerous:

Your brain loves patterns. Six wins feels like a pattern. It triggers something primal—this team is good, they're on a roll, the momentum is real. But in reality, six games is noise. Over an 82-game season, six-game winning streaks happen to mediocre teams too.

The market moves with you. When you feel confident about a team's recent run, so does everyone else. The line has already adjusted. You're not getting the Lakers at +400 anymore—that value existed before the winning streak, not after.

Mean reversion is powerful. Teams that significantly outperform expectations over a short stretch tend to regress. That six-game winning streak might have included some lucky bounces, some favorable calls, some opponent injuries. Those factors don't persist.

My system for beating recency bias:

I check season-long data before any bet. What's this team's record over the full season? What's their point differential? What's their performance against quality opponents? Recent games are just one input, not the main input.

I specifically look for recency bias in the market. If a team is getting bet heavily because of recent results, I ask: is this attention justified, or is the public overreacting? Sometimes the contrarian bet is fading the hot team.

I wait 48 hours after big news. If a team just had a huge win or crushing loss, I don't bet on their next game. The lines haven't settled, my own emotions haven't settled, and the probability of making a biased decision is high.

I track my own biases. In my betting spreadsheet, I note when I'm betting with or against recent momentum. Over time, I've seen that my "this team is hot" bets underperform my analysis-based bets. Data keeps me honest.

Recency bias will never fully go away—it's human nature. But acknowledging it and building systems around it has saved my bankroll many times.