Can You Believe These Predictions?

“Cynicism is the attitude that people are primarily motivated by self-interest.” - Eric Neumann & Jamil Zaki

?Being in the prediction business has numerous ups and downs.? One of the main challenges is convincing people that you have a reasonable level of accuracy in your forecasts. Most people are inherently cynical when it comes to processing your prediction success.

?One of the first problems is that many people have a distorted idea of what predictive success is, which comes from a fundamental misunderstanding about what winning actually entails.

?What percentage of points does a leading tennis champion win?

?The answer is 55%. Success isn’t about always winning every point. It’s about winning enough of the points and more than would happen by chance – 50%. That’s the difference between being a champion or someone who aspires to be a champion.

?Now, what makes a successful prediction? Well it depends of course. But suppose we are considering predictions of NFL games. If you were betting on NFL games what would you predictions need to achieve to be considered successful?

?For most gamblers that would mean at least winning more than losing. That depends on a number of things like how much was wagered but if you were wagering the same on each game, a success rate of more than 50% will give you a positive balance.

?Over the last 11 years IntualityAI’s success in NFL predictions has been 58% and to date this year it is? 65% ensuring that anyone who followed its recommendations would be winning money. In fact, the rate of return for those first 11 years is 449%.

?Now when some people here that, they became highly cynical with comments like these:

?“If you were really that good why would you tell anyone else.”

?As if sharing it with others would make our rate of return a lot less!

?The quote above suggests that cynics assume all actions based on self-interest. So, if you knew the future, you would simply keep it to yourself to get some sort of competitive advantage.

?Indeed, why should the weather person tell you what the weather is going to be? They could keep it to themselves and take advantage in some way, like selling umbrellas.

?But not everyone is looking to profit from their predictive ability. And they can still share it and profit.

?So, our rate of return on NFL betting this year is currently 65% with a ROI of 17%.? You can check out our record and ways of accessing our data at www.intualityai/sports.

?Reference:

?Eric Neumann & Jamil Zaki, (2023) Toward a social psychology of cynicism.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences,Volume 27, Issue 1,

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