Abstract
Losses disguised as wins (LDWs) appear to reinforce gambling persistence. However, little research has examined this phenomenon with real gamblers in natural gambling settings. We aimed to examine the relationship between within-session outcome size and subsequent gambling persistence. Account-based gambling data of individuals playing LDW games over a randomly selected day (2,035,339 bets made by 8636 individuals) was examined. We used a logistic mixed effects model to examine the relationship between the outcome of the previous bet (loss, LDW and real wins) and the odds of continuing betting in a game session. The odds of continuing betting in a game session were positively associated with the outcome of the previous bet. Compared to LDWs, losses lowered the odds of continuing a game session. In contrast, real wins implied greater odds of continuing a game session compared to LDWs. It is concluded that LDWs increase the likelihood of continuing betting compared to losses, but decrease the likelihood of continuing to gamble compared to real wins. As LDWs increase the number of bets made within a gambling session, and hence within-session gambling persistence, LDWs may potentially play an etiological role in the development of gambling problems over time.
Highlights
Modern electronic gaming machines (EGMs) such as slot machines, fruit machines and video lottery terminals (VLTs) often offer opportunities for wagering on multiple pay lines
Losses comprised 65.48% (SD = 10.30) of the outcomes, wins 20.04% (SD = 10.55) and losses disguised as wins’ (LDWs) 14.48% (SD = 9.67) of outcomes across games. This indicated that losses were the most common outcome followed by actual wins and LDWs, respectively
It was hypothesized that LDWs would increase within-session gambling persistence compared to losses, and decrease within-session persistence compared to real wins
Summary
Modern electronic gaming machines (EGMs) such as slot machines, fruit machines and video lottery terminals (VLTs) often offer opportunities for wagering on multiple pay lines. In some cases, the size of the win can be less than the spin’s wager resulting in a net loss rather than a net win for that spin. This outcome is denoted as ‘losses disguised as wins’ (LDWs; Dixon, Harrigan, Sandhu, Collins, & Fugelsang, 2010). Multi-line betting is popular among gamblers (Haw, 2008). The number of pay lines, but not bet multiplication, is a predictor of average bet size (Haw, 2009). The majority of gamblers use a mini-max strategy (Livingstone & Woolley, 2008), playing minimum credits on the maximum number of pay lines. The mini-max strategy increases the positive feedback of a spin, the payback percentage remains the same (Harrigan, Dixon, MacLaren, Collins, & Fugelsang, 2011)
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