Where does “momentum” fit in when we talk about sports betting?

Momentum or having a winning streak is increasingly being associated with the notion that “winning brings more winning” and that the positive outcome in sports is born out of previous consecutive positive outcomes. 

But how is this linked to sports wagering? Well, no matter if you are someone who has experimented with online betting in the Philippines or with sports betting sites all over the planet, momentum is something that you should think about before you make up your mind about your picks. 

Is there such a thing as ‘success breeding success’? 

Momentum has become such a desirable thing in sports, that we often see coaches and managers fundamentally base their decisions on critical matters such as team lineups, on their effort to take advantage of it. Or we see athletes in their post game interviews, citing “Momentum” as the key factor that brought their victory or even that led to their defeat – if absent!

Or we even get to see whole teams admitting that their win has been the result of an apparent momentum. Instead of recognizing their own part and their own contribution, they generally see this ‘force’ as the main driver of the end results. 

What exactly is momentum?

The momentum in sports can be described as a period of winning streaks or simply a period of good performance. It can be for a striker in football that manages to hit the net in crucial moments during the match. It can be for a batter in cricket that scores an incredibly high number of runs. It can be for a center in basketball that collects as many rebounds as possible in a series of games in a league. Or it can be for a team that is experiencing a period of continuous victories. In fact, it can be anything that leads to a desired outcome and that has some kind of duration. 

Momentum as a factor to consider in sports betting decisions

If momentum is valued so much by the sport itself – the coaches, the managers, the officials, the teams and the athletes – shouldn’t it be valued by sports bettors as well? I mean, should it be an extra factor to consider when bettors make their picks or decide on their wagers on an NBA game let’s say? 

We all have thought at some point in our lives that we have come across good fortune. When it comes to sports, this is translated like that: we believe, for example, that a team is on a winning streak and that the outcome of each subsequent game will be dependent on the outcomes of the previous games. So, the winning streak will continue for as long as the team has momentum. But then how much does this momentum last? And can we bet on their momentum? 

As we said earlier, there is no concrete evidence that the winning streak of a team determines their next victory, but there is mounting evidence that momentum has a very substantial effect on players’ psychology, confidence, morale and motivation. 

And if it has such an impact on their mood and feelings, then it does certainly affect their performance as well. Research devoted to the role of momentum in subsequent sports’ outcomes has demonstrated that when players and athletes believe that the momentum is on its own a factor of success, then the winning streak itself is a predictive factor for their next victory. 

This tells us one important thing about sports betting: when we see an NBA team, for instance, being on a winning streak and players recognizing that they are having momentum, they are by definition more tuned and more dedicated to getting one more victory to sustain their streak. Keep this in mind the next time you come across a situation like that and make sure that you incorporate it in your picks.