The Aureola Effect in Sports Betting

We do not want to be sexist, but we assume that the majority of sports betting punters are male. Therefore, our first example, showing the psychological aspect of the Aureola Effect in sports betting is that of man who thinks that a girl he recently met have to be funny, kind and intelligent because she had a stunning smile and she smelled nice. Is this reasonable? Probably not, but many people think like that.

Furthermore, proving we treat both sexes equally, let us give an example of a woman who though a man she just met is probably stupid, aggressive and lazy, just because he did not smile when he shook her hand and did not seem like a nice guy overall. This psychological occurrence has been analysed for centuries and is something that humans cannot change, after all, it is innate to their human nature to judge the book by its cover and very often make wrongful assumptions. Sometimes, the human behaviourists, psychologists and other scientific experts describe this phenomenon as the Aureola Effect.

Let us introduce to You two people - Nathaniel and Katherine. Nathaniel is smart, wise, hard-working, confident, funny, stubborn and messy. From the other hand, Katherine is stubborn, messy, funny, confident, hard-working, wise and smart. Alright, now let us ask You, which of these two people made a better impression on You, based on what You just read? We are quite certain and would even made a bet on that the majority of You have selected Nathaniel as a person with better overall character and traits!

This is especially surprising because we used the same, identical characteristics for both Nathaniel and Katherine, but in reversed order. You probably made such an assumption because the human mind likes to keep it simple, and do not overstretch itself too much.

Our brain do not like to thoroughly analyse all the things we encounter, therefore, it classified the first, initial traits as the more important and therefore did not consider that much the rest of the characteristics. That is why, even though both these examples of people, Nathaniel and Katherine had the same characteristics with few good traits and two bad ones, we only spotted the bad ones with Katherine as they were in the front of the line.

This way, you considered Nathaniel to be an intelligent, hard-working guy and his messiness and stubbornness connected with his important high position and number of tasks and stress that is probably attributed to his important job. From the other hand, in the eyes of the majority, Katherine seems to be a lazy, plumpy lady, with greasy hair and complete lack of personal hygiene. What is more, she is rude and very impolite. And the fact is she is hilariously funny and very hard-working and smart, does not change your opinion about her, which is by the way not so high

We see and understand things like that because of the lazy part of the human mind that only considers the first things our eyes see and tries to categorize the rest of the data as less important so that it is easier to comprehend, classify and understand as a complete thing, which only proves our initial theory.

As You already well know, the possible success in sports betting is mostly connected with the smallest details that punter have to consider before placing a winning bet. You would be surprised when You hear how many times the Aureola Effect destroyed Your chances in making a winning bet on sports. Nobody understands why, nobody knows when, but very often, punters attribute very positive connotation to players or teams (That they maybe personally like or admire) that are not necessary true anymore or have nothing to do with proper analysis of a sports betting event. They tend to overlook the actual, good qualities of the players and the teams, in favour of the reputation, old tales or wrong facts.

You need an example? Here You go: The Men’s Football National Team of Brazil. The biggest South American country is known as the ‘Land of Football’ where children play to be future stars from the moment they learn how to walk. For decades the Brazilians were the equivalents of the football in all its glory, its national team won many World Cups and Copa Americas, its players were shining in both the national team and their clubs, and later on, they stormed the European football and the majority of ‘football diamonds’ - the young, hot prospects with huge football talent potential were born every minute in Brazil.

But, in recent years, this tendency changed and despite the huge amounts of money spend on Brazilian players such as Neymar from Barcelona to Paris Saint Germain for 222 million Euros or young Vinicius Junior at the age of sixteen from Flamengo to Real Madrid for 40 million Euro, this money do not seem to be equal to the successes of the Brazilians in modern football. They may have set all the record on World Cup, Copa America and in club competitions, both as teams and with individual players, but currently the Canarinhos do not excel that much and the last time they were the best in the world was at the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan.

Despite that, many experts, football fans and most of all, football punters from all over the world, still consider the National Team of Brazil in Men’s Football to be the best on the globe and clear favourite in any major football event or competition, such as World Cup.

Similar case is connected with former football players who were famous and often victorious during their football player career and now they became football managers and coaches. Let us get the facts straight from the very first moment: The fact that someone was fantastic player, does not mean he will be a good football manager and the two things are almost completely irrelevant.

Before the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, a lot of punters attempted to foreseen the final triumph of the national Team of Argentina in Men’s Football because their coach at that time was Diego Armando Maradona, the godly-like figure in the world of football. Despite his very poor coaching experience (he did not coach or managed any professional team before), people still though his team will get inspired by him and something historical will happen. Despite all these expectations and a tremendously good team that included such quality players as Gonzalo Higuain, Angel Di Maria, Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez, Sergio Aguero, Javier Pastore, Ezequiel Lavezzi or Javier Mascherano, the Albicelestes did not prove to be unstoppable attack force and after few mediocre-to-awful performances they finished their African adventure on the first play-off round (1 / 8 of the final) in which they were trashed 0:4 by the National Team of Germany in football.

We speak of slightly different type of the Aureola Effect in case when someone attach a positive attributes to the football teams or players that have not reach their full potential lately and have now triumphed recently or ever, but for some reason they have a sentimental value for us or we sympathise with them because they are underdogs, come from the city nearby ours or simply we like some of their players. The perfect example is the National Team of Men’s Football of Greece, which prior to their astonishing success in 2004 European Championships in Portugal, had no successes or even decent run of few good results. Despite that, the Greeks managed to win both the Euro and the love of the fans from all over the world who simply followed the story of a typical underdog. Same goes for Leicester City which surprisingly won the Premier League in 2016 while battling the relegation the previous season.

But the perfect example, seems to be the team of Liverpool Football Club. Despite its best years being in the 1970’s or 1980’s and the last English First Division Champion title won in 1990, before it became known as the English Premier League, many experts and football fans and punters still consider them as one of the favourites (They are not the front-runners as Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal seem to be but they are also considered to have quite good chances as Manchester City or Tottenham Hotspur do) for the crown of the Premier League champions in every season. Why it is like that? Why people still believe in the team which has not reached the peak of English football in decades?

The answer is clear for the majority of football fans, especially younger Liverpool fans, that remember the amazing UEFA Champions League Final Match from 2005, which is considered one of the best, if not the best, UEFA Champions League Final Match in the long history of this competition. That time, the English team managed to overcome all odds and despite losing 0:3 at the half time, they somehow scored three goals to the team of AC Milan, which was a football giant at that time. Not only did they managed to drew before the final whistle, but in nerve-wracking penalty shoot-out they managed to win the UEFA Champions League, when Jerzy Dudek, Polish goalkeeper playing for Liverpool managed to save two penalties, one from Andriy Shevchenko who was a top striker at that time.

Milan fans were devastated, their team was richer, they had better players, had better reputation, were more popular and clearly they were better in the match, but somehow, the team spirit and pure determination of the Liverpool players allowed them to win the most desired trophy in the world of football. Apart from the Rossoneri supporters (and even few of them), the majority of football fans remember this game as one of the best in their life, purely fantastic. The fans remember the match so well, that Liverpool gained some-sort-of legendary status which even continues till this day on and even though they have completely different coaching staff, players or owners, they still are considered a victorious, determined team that against all odds will fight till the end for their fans to win the game.

Despite all our sympathy towards The Reds, this is a perfect case of the Aureola Effect, as the team from Liverpool team has not managed to come even close to such success in the following seasons and did not return to the elite of European football clubs for long time.

The Aureola Effect in sports betting also works the other way around. Few lost gems of a tennis player in a game very often sparks a thought in punter’s brain that this player is no good and it rapidly changes the shift of the odds offered by the online bookmaker on that particular player or event. Same goes for a series of missed shots in basketball at the beginning of the first quarter or one or few weaker performances of an athlete at the start of the season in any sport.

At the beginning we have to point out that the task of stopping the effect of the Aureola phenomenon is not an easy thing to do, but of course it is doable. The human mind is a tricky mechanism and a very complicated thing, almost like a living computer that considers suggestions from the intuition and the inner threshold of our conscience. To overcome the obvious incentives and train our brain we need to work very hard to trick it. How You might ask?

Simply provide Your brain with few contrasting arguments and information about particular theory and idea. You think Brazil is the best National Football Team in the world? Think again, and try to find another opinion, for example from Your good friend Google Search Engine. Maybe we are boring at times because we constantly write about the same things, but we know this for sure that every sports betting bet have to be placed after a thorough sporting event betting analysis that considers all available data, including professional evaluation of the event with statistics, news and all information. Only such mentality will enable You to trick your mind and do not fall into the Aureola Effect and get regular long-term profits from Your sports betting.