Control over gambling: Solution or problem?

Journal of Business Research, 2015

Introduction: Gamblers' enduring illusions of control (IOC) may be one reason why they continue to gamble in the face of sustained losses. If gamblers persist in the belief that they have special skills, knowledge and other advantages when gambling, they may be able to convince themselves it is worth doing again. Maintaining an IOC requires selective attention of the illusion supporting moments during the construction of an evaluation of a gambling session. Objective: Test the hypothesis that selected moments, specifically the moment of the highest win and the last moment of the gaming session, explain the retrospective evaluation of the session for gamblers high in the illusion of control. Method: A total of 102 and 35 experienced gamblers were recruited from gambling venues and participated in two studies by gambling on 20 occasions on coin toss outcomes. Participants were asked to evaluate their enjoyment of the gambling experience they had just completed, and completed an IOC Beliefs Questionnaire designed to measure the extent to which they believe they are good at influencing gambling outcomes. Results: Gamblers with a high IOC use the largest win in their evaluation when they lose. This is consistent with the motivated selective attention hypothesis. Non-threatened gamblers, those with a low IOC or winners, use the final outcome as the determinant of their evaluation of the gaming session. Conclusion: The results suggest that instead of altering an important characteristic of self, gamblers instead reflect on the moment of a gambling episode that does not threaten, and in fact supports, their ability to find patterns in random events. Indicators of the illusion could be used to assist gamblers in controlling their own behavior.

Addictive Behaviors, 2019

Cognitive distortions in gambling are irrational thoughts that cause an individual to overestimate their level of control over the outcome of the game and diminish the role of chance. Due to their strong relation to gambling disorders, they are a particularly important characteristic to assess and understand in gamblers. Although numerous measures of gambling-related cognitive distortions exist, studies assessing criterion validity are scarce. In this study, we develop several tests of the Gamblers Belief Questionnaire (GBQ), a versatile and widely used scale. A sample of 184 U.S. adults was recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete an online study that included measurement of the GBQ and an assessment of the perceived role of skill and chance in various gambling and non-gambling activities. In addition to a confirmatory factor analysis of the scale, three novel validation tests were developed to understand whether the GBQ subscales can identify and discriminate measures of illusion of control and gambler’s fallacy distortions. Our validation tests demonstrate that the scale does measure both distortions, providing information about gamblers’ cognition that is unexplained by gambling problems, frequency of play, and demographics. Conversely, our analysis of the factor structure does not show good fit. We conclude that the GBQ measures gambling-related cognitive distortions, but there may be an opportunity to reduce the number of scale items and further refine precision of the two subscales.

Thinking & Reasoning

Erroneous gambling-related beliefs (EGRBs) can be defined as beliefs that imply a failure to recognise how commercial gambling activities are designed to generate a guaranteed loss to players. In theorising about how EGRBs develop, previous reviews have proposed that EGRBs are extensions of decision-making heuristics and associated biases. We propose an alternative generative mechanism: one in which gambling games make substantial wins seem possible through problem-solving and eventual correct strategic action. EGRBs are then beliefs in the possibility of correct strategic action (illusion of control) that develop as players trial candidate strategies-strategies selected based on various broader beliefs. We further propose that EGRBs can be classified based on what is theorised in cognitive science about categories of general human beliefs about the world. For example, it has been theorised that human beliefs about supernatural forces and randomness have certain similarities across cultures, and so we propose that there exists a category of supernatural EGRBs, as well as a category of EGRBs based on broader beliefs about the nature of randomness. We review evidence for this classification scheme and discuss how it can be applied in researching and treating gambling disorder.

Much of the psychological research on individual gamblers has examined a range of personality characteristics (e.g., sensation seeking, impulsivity) and other characteristics associated with gambling (e.g., superstition). The current study sought to examine the relationship between gambling affinity and superstition, paranormal beliefs, irrational beliefs about gambling, sensation seeking and impulsivity. A sample of 329 of mainly ‘committed’ gamblers participated in a cross-sectional survey employing a wide range of validated psychometric measures. Results showed that gambling affinity was positively correlated with all measures of irrational beliefs, sensation seeking and impulsivity. High affinity gamblers were significantly more likely to endorse superstitious and irrational beliefs, and to score higher in sensation seeking than low affinity gamblers. Superstition, sensation seeking, impulsivity, and irrational beliefs about gambling predicted 32.5% of the variance in gambling affinity. Only impulsivity was a non-significant predictor and may therefore be a mediator between other factors and gambling affinity.

Frontiers in psychology, 2017

Although a number of gambling preventive initiatives have been realized with adolescents, many of them have been developed in absence of a clear and explicitly described theoretical model. The present work was aimed to analyze the adequacy of a model to explain gambling behavior referring to (Study 1), and to verify the effectiveness of a preventive intervention developed on the basis of this model (Study 2). Following dual-process theories on cognitive functioning, in Study 1 we tested a model in which , i.e., susceptibility to the gambler's fallacy, and , i.e., superstitious thinking, were the antecedents of gambling-related cognitive distortions that, in turn, affect gambling frequency and problem gambling. Participants were 306 male adolescents ( = 17.2 years). A path analysis indicated that cognitive distortions have a mediating role in the relationship that links probabilistic reasoning fallacy and superstitious thinking with problem gambling. Following these findings, in ...

International Gambling Studies, 2005

Journal of Gambling Studies, 2000

Superstitious beliefs, defined as a strong conviction based on the erroneous perception of a cause-effect association between two independent events, are considered to play an instrumental role in the maintenance of gambling behaviour. In this preliminary study, responses to eight items assessing superstitious beliefs were compared among 56 electronic gaming machine (EGM) problem gamblers, 22 non-problem EGM and 23 non-EGM non-problem gamblers. Results suggested that problem gamblers endorsed more superstitious beliefs than non-problem gamblers and that such beliefs were correlated with gambling intensity. Further research is required to determine if superstitious beliefs represent a vulnerability factor for the development of problem gambling or emerge as a consequence of involvement in gambling.

Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 2012

This study examined the effects of messages on altering risky gambling behavior in college students. While playing a chance-based computerized game with play money, three groups of participants either viewed occasional accurate messages that correctly described the contingencies of the game, neutral messages unrelated to the contingencies, or no messages. Participants in the accurate message condition spent overall less money gambling, played fewer trials in the final phase of the game when all trials resulted in losses, and were more likely to quit the game while they still had money remaining in the bank. The findings suggest that "reminders" about the random nature of games and the overall negative rate of return might lead to more responsible gaming. (Am J Addict 2009;18:243-247) Within the last ten years, we have witnessed an unprecedented increase in legal gambling venues. 1 The revenues for governments and the employment opportunities in the gambling industry have not been without social costs, given that approximately 1.6% of adults develop into pathological gamblers and another 3.8% engage in problem gambling. 2 As these prevalence rates are likely to rise with the number of gambling opportunities, the negative consequences of excessive gambling will develop into a serious public health concern. 1 Recent efforts have therefore focused on decreasing excessive involvement in gambling.

2020

Responsible gambling (RG) measures are methods aimed at reducing and preventing negative consequences associated with gambling. Some RG measures are set by authorities or gambling operators while others are available as features for gamblers to use themselves (e.g. budget tools where personal monetary limits are set prior to gambling). The present study is based on a general gambler population and investigates how RG measures with some specific RG features are assessed by the gamblers. The data was collected in 2013 and 2015. The samples were drawn from the Norwegian Population Registry. In total 9,129 gamblers participated. Gamblers were asked to state to which degree they agreed that ten specific RG measures help or would help them controlling their gambling. Overall, between 35% and 42% neither agreed nor disagreed, but among those with an opinion, most agreed. A multiple regression analysis identified eleven variables as significant predictors of positive beliefs about RG measur...

Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2001

Differences in underlying cognitions across gambling tasks were examined. The South Oaks Gambling Screen, a measure of pathological gambling, was completed by 60 undergraduate students. They also played computer-simulated games of roulette. slots, and blackjack in a laboratory setting. The "think-aloud procedure was used to reveal subjects' cognitions, which were subsequently categorized into cognitive heuristics. lndividuals were classified as social gamblers with and without problems and probable pathological gamblers. Results reveal that certain heuristics, including references to an explanation of their losses, hindsight bias, personification of the dealerimachine, chasing behavior, and past experiences were most frequently endorsed by probable pathological gamblers. Empirical evidence supports that probable pathological gamblers are qualitatively different from social gamblers in their emitted verbalized cognitive heuristics. Research on gambling generally has focused on identifying the reasons reported for engaging in gambling behavior in order to determine the underlying motivations or rationale behind this activity. The primary reasons for gambling are reported to be enjoyment, excitement, and winning money, with similar results being found for adolescents and adults (Gupta & Derevensky, 1998; Wynne, Smith, & Volberg, 1994). Although previous studies have suggested that the primary reasons reported for gambling focus on the entertainment, excitement, and enjoyment derived from gambling, a growing body of research has centered on the cognitive biases that promote and maintain gambling behavior in spite of repeated failure. A cognitive perspective may be one component to the understanding of the regular gambler's behavior and provides an explanation of the individual's perseverance despite persistent failure. Regular gamblers hold a set of beliefs, many of which are false (irrational thoughts, erroneous cognitions, and misperceptions),