Whether you are predicting scores for basketball, baseball or football, the problems are similar in nature. You are sure that you have done your homework, checked and analyzed all the past statistics, created dozens of prediction graphs, and you still get it wrong. How can it still go wrong after all the analysis that you had done?

Well, your predictions went wrong because predicting scores for sports game is not an exact science. You can't use mathematical formulas and expect to get it right. Rather, prediction is an art. You will be able to achieve more accurate prediction results if you treat your predictions as a human science instead of just some formula that needs to be computed.

No doubt, hard facts help to give more accurate predictions. But often, it's the soft facts that matter - and these are the facts that are most likely ignored.

For example, pick any top athlete in a professional basketball league. Most likely, he is young, very competitive, and obviously very rich. Give the large amount of media attention and sponsorships, the young star rises very quickly - both in fame and wealth. So what happens next?

Being young, he doesn't know how to handle that much money. That is too much money arriving too quickly. Now he finds himself overloaded with money, and he doesn't know what to do with them. So he splurge of fancy sports cars, spends lots of money on his girlfriends, and get into fights at night clubs. That is why we often see young athletes grabbing the headlines. Their trouble making spree makes them ideal targets for gossipy news.

Then everything starts going downhill. The player turns up late for practice, argue with his managers, and put up poor performances all season.

So you see how a player's personal life has affect his sports performance? Try to analyze that with cutting edge technology? No way! The only way to find out if the player will continue to perform is to take an active interest in his personal life.

How is his marriage? Is he going to have a baby? How is he handling all the responsibilities as a new father? Stuff like that. After a while, you feel like you really know this guy.

Would you bet money on someone you don't really know? Obviously, you won't. But unfortunately, most people will. They don't take an interest in the sports people that they bet on. As a result, their predictions are often wrong, and they lose a lot of money.

So remember, when you are analyzing a team's performance, it all comes down to individual performance. When each team player performs his duties with excellence, the team will shine.

Don't just depend on past statistics. Go a step further, and get to really know the players. When you start winning money, you will be glad that you did.