Overconfidence bias and conjunction fallacy in predicting outcomes of football matches

• We examine the influence of betting experience and task format on cognitive biases.
• Frequent and sporadic bettors did not differ regarding the overconfidence bias.
• Frequent bettors made more conjunction fallacies than sporadic bettors did.
• Frequency format reduced the overconfidence bias compared to probability format.
• Frequency format of the task had no influence on conjunction fallacy.

The aim of this study was to explore the occurrence of the overconfidence bias and the conjunction fallacy in betting behavior among frequent and sporadic bettors and to test whether it was influenced by the task format (probability vs. frequencies). Frequent bettors (N = 67) and sporadic bettors (N = 63) estimated whether the bets on football games presented to them via an on-line questionnaire would be successful. The bets consisted of singles (one match outcomes) and conjunctions (two matches outcomes), and were presented either in probability or frequency terms. Both frequent and sporadic bettors showed similar levels of the overconfidence bias. However, the frequent bettors made the conjunction fallacy more often than the sporadic bettors. The presentation of the task in the frequency terms significantly reduced the overconfidence bias in comparison to the evaluations in probability terms, but left the conjunction fallacy unaffected.