“I was that close”: Investigating Players’ Reactions to Losses, Wins, and Near-Misses on Scratch Cards

Stange, Madison; Graydon, Candice; Dixon, Mike J.

doi:10.1007/s10899-015-9538-x

Cited by 30 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In line with this idea, near-misses are often rated as less pleasant than full-misses and elicit larger skin conductance responses (Clark et al, 2009;Dixon et al, 2013;Stange et al, 2015). Accordingly, it is possible that the enhanced striatal response to near-misses seen here reflects enhanced negative arousal and frustration (see eg, Shao et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Amplified Striatal Responses to Near-Miss Outcomes in Pathological Gamblers

Sescousse

Janssen

Hashemi

et al. 2016

Neuropsychopharmacol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Near-misses in gambling games are losing events that come close to a win. Near-misses were previously shown to recruit reward-related brain regions including the ventral striatum, and to invigorate gambling behavior, supposedly by fostering an illusion of control. Given that pathological gamblers are particularly vulnerable to such cognitive illusions, their persistent gambling behavior might result from an amplified striatal sensitivity to near-misses. In addition, animal studies have shown that behavioral responses to near-miss-like events are sensitive to dopamine, but this dopaminergic influence has not been tested in humans. To investigate these hypotheses, we recruited 22 pathological gamblers and 22 healthy controls who played a slot machine task delivering wins, near-misses and full-misses, inside an fMRI scanner. Each participant played the task twice, once under placebo and once under a dopamine D2 receptor antagonist (sulpiride 400 mg), in a doubleblind, counter-balanced design. Participants were asked about their motivation to continue gambling throughout the task. Across all participants, near-misses elicited higher motivation to continue gambling and increased striatal responses compared with full-misses. Crucially, pathological gamblers showed amplified striatal responses to near-misses compared with controls. These group differences were not observed following win outcomes. In contrast to our hypothesis, sulpiride did not induce any reliable modulation of brain responses to near-misses. Together, our results demonstrate that pathological gamblers have amplified brain responses to near-misses, which likely contribute to their persistent gambling behavior. However, there is no evidence that these responses are influenced by dopamine. These results have implications for treatment and gambling regulation. INTRODUCTIONPathological gambling is a behavioral addiction with dramatic consequences including bankruptcy, unemployment, and relationship problems. The prevalence among college students has risen sharply in the past 10 years (Nowak and Aloe, 2014), while the rate of attempted suicide, approaching 20%, is higher than for any other addictive disorder (Bischof et al, 2015). Central to pathological gambling is the loss of control over gambling behavior and the inability to stop playing. This compulsive behavior is postulated to be fueled by cognitive distortions regarding the game structure. One example is the misappraisal of nearmiss events-losing outcomes that come close to a winwhich invigorate ongoing gambling behavior, conceivably by fostering an illusion of control (Clark, 2010). Although the behavioral vulnerability of pathological gamblers to such cognitive distortions is well established (Michalczuk et al, 2011), the underlying neural and neurochemical mechanisms remain elusive. We aimed to address this question using a combination of fMRI and pharmacological manipulation.Near-miss events are a hallmark of many gambling games and are particularly frequent in slot machines, which are recogniz...

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Amplified Striatal Responses to Near-Miss Outcomes in Pathological Gamblers

Sescousse

Janssen

Hashemi

et al. 2016

Neuropsychopharmacol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Studies examining the player experiences of near-miss outcomes, as previously discussed, may help to elucidate an answer. These types of outcomes exert strong effects on a player's physiological arousal (Stange et al, 2016(Stange et al, , 2017. When players experience a near-miss, the autonomic nervous system is activated such that a cascade of physiological changes occur: skin conductance increases, heart rate rises, and the player becomes aroused.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Across a wide variety of individual game types, scratch cards appear to contain many such near-miss outcomes per card. In fact, our research group reported that in a small sample of cards obtained in Ontario, all cards contained at least one near-miss for the top prize, with some cards containing more (Stange, Graydon, & Dixon, 2016). These outcomes are particularly striking in a game such as Cash for Life, a popular scratch card game in Ontario, one which costs $4.00 to play and has a top prize of $1,000 a week for life.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…effects on the player. Similarly to slot machine near-misses, scratch card near-misses have been shown to increase physiological arousal, as measured by skin conductance (Stange et al, 2016) and heart rate (Stange, Grau, Osazuwa, Graydon, & Dixon, 2017). Scratch card near-misses also increase subjective arousal, frustration, negative emotion, and disappointment (Stange et al, 2016(Stange et al, , 2017.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These findings are in line with results reported by Short, Penney, Mazmanian, & Jamieson (2015) which revealed that instant lottery play (e. g., scratch card play) was uniquely associated with problem gambling over time, but that traditional lottery play was not. These results are concerning given the availability of these games in the marketplace (there are approximately 9,700 retailers in Ontario alone [OLG, 2016]), their seemingly innocuous connotations (Short et al, 2015), the social acceptability of lottery play in general (Rogers, 1998), and the frequency with which near-misses seem to occur (Stange et al, 2016). Do near-misses in gambling games occur more often than dictated by chance alone?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Built-in bad luck: Evidence of near-miss outcomes by design in scratch cards

Stange¹,

Brown²,

Harrigan³

et al. 2017

JGI

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Scratch cards are a pervasive form of gambling in the Canadian marketplace. Despite their widespread appeal, we are only beginning to understand the influence of their structural characteristics on the player. The most widely studied of these characteristics is the near-miss, a game outcome in which the player gets two of the three needed symbols to win a jackpot prize. Although other authors have noted the existence of these outcomes in scratch cards, no systematic investigation has been undertaken to understand their occurrence in these games. We present the results of an analysis to determine the frequency of these outcomes using two samples (sample A, n = 41; sample B, n = 61) of a popular scratch card game available in Ontario, Canada. Our results suggest that certain scratch card games may be designed to include more pairs of jackpot symbols (i.e., more near-miss outcomes) than any other symbol pair. In the game that we analyzed, the top prize symbol occurred more often than any other symbol and appeared to be manipulated to appear in clusters of two, creating many near-miss outcomes to the jackpot prize. This work has strong implications for the study of gambling behaviour, responsible gambling strategies, as well as for the scientific investigation of scratch card games.Keywords: scratch cards, near-misses, structural characteristics RésuméLes cartes à gratter sont une forme très répandue de jeux sur le marché canadien. Malgré leur grand attrait, nous commenc¸ons à comprendre l'influence de leurs caractéristiques structurelles sur le joueur. La caractéristique la plus étudiée parmi elles est un résultat s'approchant du résultat gagnant; le joueur obtient deux des trois symboles nécessaires pour gagner un gros lot. Bien que d'autres auteurs aient noté l'existence de ce genre de résultats dans des cartes à gratter, aucune enquête 51

show abstract

Differential effects of prior outcomes and pauses on the speed and quality of risky choices

Chen,

Eben,

Verbruggen

2024

Behavioral Decision Making

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Failures to obtain rewards influence what people choose to do next and how quickly they execute a chosen action, which are two components of motivated behavior. For instance, in risky decisions, losses can induce faster responses and sometimes increase risk‐taking, which may lead to detrimental consequences in some situations (such as gambling). Pauses might reduce these motivational influences of prior outcomes. To examine this question, participants alternated between a guess game, in which they won or lost money, and a choice game, in which they chose between a high probability of winning a small amount of money and a low probability of winning a large amount of money. The pause between a guess and a choice game was made either short (0 or 300 ms) or long (3000 ms). In four experiments, prior outcomes consistently influenced decision speed, such that people chose faster after a loss than after a win. However, prior outcomes did not consistently influence people's choices. In contrast, pauses increased decision quality, such that participants chose the option with a higher expected value more often, without substantially reducing decision speed. Pauses may improve decision quality by influencing predecisional attention allocation to relevant information, as its effect was absent when the overall task attention was high (Experiment 3). These findings have implications for both safer gambling and risky decision research. Future work can examine the underlying computational and cognitive processes and the generalizability of these findings to other contexts and populations.

show abstract

“I was that close”: Investigating Players’ Reactions to Losses, Wins, and Near-Misses on Scratch Cards

Cited by 30 publications

References 19 publications

Amplified Striatal Responses to Near-Miss Outcomes in Pathological Gamblers

Amplified Striatal Responses to Near-Miss Outcomes in Pathological Gamblers

Built-in bad luck: Evidence of near-miss outcomes by design in scratch cards

Differential effects of prior outcomes and pauses on the speed and quality of risky choices

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About