Neuroscience of gambling

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Feb 212009
 

I mentioned in Theory of Fun that humans kinda suck as odds estimation and that this is one reason why games of chance persist. But maybe there’s more!

It turns out that the reward system that lights up when we get a near-miss in a game of skill (which makes sense) gives us the same reward when we have a near-miss in a game of chance (but only if we get to make a choice in the game, such as picking our lotto numbers, even though this has no influence over the outcome of the game).

via Neuroscience of gambling – Boing Boing.

It’s a radio segment from Quirks & Quarks available here.

  8 Responses to “Neuroscience of gambling”

  1. Gabe McGrath says:
    February 22, 2009 at 2:17 am

    Fascinating stuff – but sadly, we’re talking about a human trait that leads to terrible addictions on things like gambling machines. And possibly… MMO’s. Sure, it’s not a genre I’m really familiar with; but if getting the “sword of awesome” is a partially random event, surely we’re looking at a similar situation?

  2. Tom Hunter says:
    February 22, 2009 at 6:44 am

    My best guess is that our acting brain does not understand the difference between the situation in which we have control or we don’t. It’s looking for a pattern, (your idea) and the system gets excited by the idea that there could be a pattern (gambling research).

    Finding the pattern can be hugely rewarding, so we get excited whenever their might be a pattern. We design patterns into our quiz game all the time for that reason. Many of them are short and meaningless, for example a question with three answers all of which begin with M. There is no clue there, trust me on that. But if the player gets the answer wrong they may still “light up when they get a near miss” because they spotted a pattern, giving them the perception of a near miss.

  3. David Sahlin says:
    February 22, 2009 at 10:03 am

    I know plenty of times, in Diablo 2, a piece of loot would drop and I’d think to myself, “Oh, that’s so close to what I actually want!”

    So now I know why I’m such a lootwhore…

  4. Tom Hunter says:
    February 22, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    Gabe,

    It’s also a trait that leads people to start companies, dig for lost civilizations, and steal other peoples wallets. We try in part because we don’t know what will happen, but it might be something good. If it is good our brains light up.

    Just because we respond does not mean we are helpless in the face of the stimuli. That varies from individual to individual. Even for people who do become addicted to gambling this is good news, because at last we are beginning to understand why.

  5. Gabe McGrath says:
    February 22, 2009 at 4:23 pm

    @Tom, re: “start companies, dig for lost civilisations”..
    Mmm.. hadn’t thought of the positives. Interesting.
    My initial reaction was based on living here in Australia
    where we have an incredible number of gambling machines
    & we see the associated problems in a certain percentage of users.
    (+ their families/friends/workplaces)

  6. Peter S. says:
    February 24, 2009 at 11:55 am

    This honestly seems almost obvious (which I don’t mean derisively: I mean it makes an intuitive amount of sense). The hardest thing to really feel in statistics is independence, that past tests have NO impact on future tests.

    Not only is there the same pattern matching that distorts the perception of probability (“this number is due / won’t show up for a while”), there’s also the sense that a near miss represents “progress” towards the goal (“I’m getting closer to winning”). Likely also, when a person is anticipating a victory, sees two wheels stop on a winning combination, gets more excited (chemically) than the depressive effect of seeing the third wheel miss is able to counter. In fact, I’d stake my amateur’s reputation on all of these effects being observably less pronounced in slot machines where all the wheels stop simultaneously.

  7. Morgan Ramsay says:
    February 24, 2009 at 6:46 pm

    Most Gamblers Are Just Out for Fun — http://is.gd/kL6Z

    I like this quote:

    We need to do further work to determine precisely what kind of marketing works best, and on what kind of gamblers. Casinos themselves want to understand what is happening so they can self-regulate and avoid having onerous regulations imposed upon them. Policy makers need to know so they can safeguard consumers against exploitation. In either case, there’s a lot more research to be done in this area.

    If casinos want to understand this area better to avoid additional regulation, shouldn’t interactive entertainment companies also?

  8. Peter S. says:
    February 26, 2009 at 5:28 pm

    @Morgan Ramsey,

    It’s a double-edged sword. If you’re not already extremely heavily scrutinized, it may be better to stay able claim ignorance. People still debate whether games are bad for you, or how addictive they are. Gambling is taken for granted as being a harmful, highly addictive, socially destructive enterprise run by organized liars and cheats out to take your money.

    Meaning, casinos have a lot less to lose when it comes to research pointing out things they may not enjoy knowing, or having known about them.

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