Scientists Like to Research Gambling

Gambling games and everything related to them are top-rated among researchers and scientists worldwide. Various papers on this topic appear repeatedly; some are discussed in this article. It is interesting to note that some exciting findings for the players can sometimes be met in research.

Hungry Gamblers Play Better!

This study was performed at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in the autumn of 2014. Researchers concluded that the players who had not eaten before the game made better and more knowledgeable decisions.

To find this out, the researchers asked a group of volunteers to avoid eating in the evening and the morning before tests. Representatives of the second group were fed typically. They were asked to answer tests associated with gambling games. As a result, hungry participants did this more quickly and accurately than satiated ones.

According to the other test conditions, the students had to answer what they would prefer: a small amount of money now or much more in the future. Hungry students mainly chose the latter, whereas satiated ones preferred the former. Thus, hungry participants of the experiment thought more about the future.

This investigation allows the following recommendation for gamblers: PLAY ON AN EMPTY STOMACH!

Games Train the Brain

It is clear even without any research. Many investigations have appeared that prove the positive effect of games on brain development. It does not matter whether you play a video game or a gambling game. All of them stimulate the brain and develop its specific areas. Some games can help to evolve motor skills, while others train and improve memory. Are they able to treat diseases? Can games have healing properties?

In the summer of 2014, a group of researchers examined the impact of poker on patients with Alzheimer's disease and presented their research at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Copenhagen. It should be noted that plenty of scientists all over the world are trying to solve this problem. They want to prevent complications of Alzheimer's disease and allow patients to live everyday life with intact memory.

It turns out that poker can also contribute to the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, so the conclusions of the research carried out by the team from the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute are accepted enthusiastically. They studied 329 people who were suffering from Alzheimer's disease. It was found that those who had regularly played cards or chess and solved puzzles had more developed areas of the brain associated with Alzheimer's disease. They also showed better results in memory and cognitive ability tests.

"Games could help strengthen the brain regions that are particularly affected by Alzheimer's disease and make them less susceptible to the disease," - the researchers say.

So, we can conclude that regular poker games with friends or online casinos can help gamblers train their brains.

Problem Gambling and Cognitive Disorders

To be sure, the researchers could not ignore the "dark side" of gambling. The problem of gambling addiction (so-called problem gambling) is severe. Gamblers' families suffer, and their social communications are broken. There is even a risk for the physical existence of such players since there are a lot of cases when addicted gamblers, after losing all their savings, commit suicide.

Recent research suggests that a brain disorder can cause the development of gambling addiction. It turns out that addicted gamblers frequently meet problem gambling because they see patterns where there are not present. And this will inevitably make them make wrong decisions while playing.

The research was conducted by scientists from the University of Konstanz and the University of Clarkson, New York. Their research showed that patients suffering from ludomania often had cognitive disorders. And although such abnormal characteristics develop not always, they are associated with the disease.

Cognitive functions are abilities that connect us with the world and allow us to perceive it. They include attention, perception, memory, intelligence, speech, gnosis, and praxis – editorial comments by the portal.

This research shows that those who suffer from gambling addiction often make wrong decisions since they see patterns where there are absent. For example, they consider imaginary probabilities and believe that the roulette ball, which landed ten times in a row on the red numbers, has to bring a black winning number. However, it has been known that each spin of the roulette wheel does not depend on the previous outcomes.

Addicted gamblers show significantly worse results when dealing with tasks that check attention than healthy individuals. For example, there was the following task:

"Football boots and a ball cost $110 in total. The football boots cost $100 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?"

Addicted gamblers, in 90% of cases, relied on their first impulse and replied that the price was $10. However, it is wrong. The ball costs 5 dollars. The boots cost 105 dollars, i.e., $100 more than the ball.

Online Games of Chance May Reduce Stress

Gambling on the Internet has many features. They may help users kill time, provide entertainment, and communicate. And they can also reduce stress. Research conducted at McGill University in Montreal found that online gambling improved health. According to the researchers, on average, blood cortisol levels in gamblers were 17% lower, and therefore they were less stressed.

Other scientists have come to the same conclusion. A 6-month research at East Carolina University carried out with the participation of 134 individuals showed that online gambling reduced stress and improved mood. Research at the University of Oxford showed that online gambling favored people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Several online casinos have recently conducted polls among blackjack players, and 74% of gamblers said gambling was an excellent way to have fun and relieve stress.

So, if you have a hard day, You should play your favorite game and forget about stress!

The Number of Casinos and the Number of Addicted Gamblers?

Online gambling has been explosively growing over the last decade. Casinos, poker rooms, and betting offices have sprung up like mushrooms. It would seem that according to the logic, the number of people with problem gambling should also increase at the same rate!

According to the researchers from the Research Institute on Addictions in Buffalo (RIA), it is wrong.

"We compared the results of two national phone opinion polls carried out with an interval of ten years and did not find a significant increase in the rate of growth of addicted gamblers in the United States, despite the increase in gaming opportunities." - John Welt, a senior researcher at the RIA, says.

The first phone opinion poll was conducted in 1999-2000. The number of respondents reached 2,613 individuals. The second opinion poll was organized in 2011-13. During it, 2963 individuals were interviewed. They were asked about their participation in various gambling activities: lotteries, instant win games, card games, slot machines, casino games, online gambling, sports betting, horse racing betting, and dog or cockroach racing betting. It turned out that, despite an increase in gambling opportunities, the number of addicted gamblers did not become higher.

Using several criteria, the researchers found no statistically significant changes in gambling addiction levels.

• The number of addicted gamblers remained in the 3.5 to 5.5 percent range, depending on the experiment's criterion.
• Moreover, the researchers found that the total number of gamblers decreased, despite the increase in opportunities for online gambling caused by the development of the Internet.
• About 82.2 percent of respondents gambled in 1999-2000.
• This percentage reduced to 76.9 in 2011-13.
• Furthermore, a significant reduction in the average number of days spent on gambling was observed among respondents.
• This parameter reached 59.9 days per year in 1999-2000 and became 53.7 days in 2011-13.

"Our results show that U.S. residents have gambled less without any doubt." – Welt says.

Thus, it has been proven that the growing number of casinos does not increase the number of addicted gamblers at the same rate. Why is this happening? Researchers poorly understand this. There are only hypotheses.

"The theory of adaptation may explain this. The initial elevation in the impact of gambling clubs leads to an increase in addicted gamblers. Still, eventually, the population adapts, and further negative effects are not observed." - John Welt says.

Why Don't Gamblers Learn from Their Mistakes?

Research conducted by Dr. Mark Griffiths in 1989 was devoted to studying cognitive differences between regular and non-regular slot fans. In particular, he was interested in how regular and casual players think. Is it the same, or does it differ? This study was not associated with the factors that made people gamble (for example, character, education, or social environment).

The researcher was interested in features that might stimulate people to continue gambling.

Sixty gamblers were used in this experiment. There were 30 casual and 30 regular players. Griffiths used his technique called "Think Aloud." According to it, participants of the experiments had to pronounce all their thoughts loudly while gambling. The six most essential gamblers' perception distortions were found. Let's discuss them following:

1. Gamblers believe we can control random events by choosing a profitable slot machine.
2. Gamblers believe their skills lead to victory, and external factors, such as bad luck or troubles, explain losses.
3. Gamblers believe that random events are regular, so they think the probability of winning will increase by prolonging the losing series. For example, tails should come up after the sixth flip if you have tossed heads five times in a row.
4. Gamblers remember their victories but forget their losses.
5. Gamblers are superstitious and believe that the two variables are related, whereas they are not. For example, the dice should be thrown gently to get a low number or roughly if you want a high number.
6. Gamblers usually evaluate their success, considering the total income more often than the relative frequency of victories, i.e., regular players often win more frequently than casual gamblers. Still, they do not realize this happens because they play a lot. In addition, they lose more frequently than non-regular gamblers.

Thus, the behavioral patterns accepted by regular players explain why gamblers do not learn from their mistakes. They believe in their skills and superstitions and have inappropriate and irrational behavior.

Hot Hand

Juemin Xu and Nigel Harvey, researchers from the University College in London, published a paper confirming the existence of one of the most popular gambling theories: we are talking about the so-called hot hand effect. In other words, it is an idea that the probability of victories grows after your first victory.

The authors analyzed 569.915 real bets made by 776 players at one of the betting offices and found out how initial victories and losses affected the probability of winning in the future.

1. Initially, the percentage of winning bets was equal to roughly forty-eight percent.
2. Xu and Harvey separated winners and studied their subsequent bets.
3. The second bet of about 49% of the selected winners won.
4. Then, the gamblers who had won two bets in a row had a successful third bet in 57% of cases.
5. The fourth wager won 67% of cases,
6. The fifth bet won 72% of cases.
7. The odds of the sixth wager were indeed fantastic. They were equal to 76%.

And what about the losers? They continued to lose money. Among 190.359 bettors, who lost their initial wagers, 53% lost the second bet. Those with enough money for the third bet lost 65% of cases. When these unlucky gamblers lost five bets in a row, their chances of victory dropped to 23%!

Winning and losing sessions did not correlate with the player's skills: successful gamblers and chronic losers were present in both groups. Why did this happen? The researchers believe that players act under the influence of the so-called "gambler's error" in case of both successful and unfavorable sessions.

Those who had won made more prudent bets because they believed their luck would soon end. The losers started making riskier bets with high odds since they wanted to win their money back. They also believed that their unlucky session was coming to an end! However, it turned out that it was possible to lose permanently.

What does this mean? This means that the lucky gamblers win because they expect defeat. And unlucky players lose because they expect victory. Both of them are mistaken in their expectations. However, the researchers believe that the probability of winning in the next round increases whenever you win. Keep this in mind and take it into account while playing.