Near-Miss Effect on Prolonging Gambling Disputed

3.10.2019, 18:35

Recent research shows that near misses present in gambling slot machines may not necessarily sway problem gamblers to gamble more.

Early last month, the Journal of Gambling Studies published a study showing that the slot manufacturers deliberately engineer the machines to ring even when there is no monetary payoff. Before this, studies showed that these signals motivate problem gamblers to gamble more by signaling a near miss which stimulates the brain’s reward centers. The gamblers who experience near misses may embrace them as motivating indicators, consequently raising their hopes for future triumphs. These studies had shown that the brain of these gamblers interpret near losses as wins, although they are technically losses.

Near-Miss Effect Gambling Study

However, the recent study carried out by the University of Alberta disputed this. The researchers made use of homing pigeons and human subjects to carry the research. This was to solely evaluate their reactions to coming close to a big win in a simulated gambling environment.

According to the authors of the study, the results of the research “question the underlying premise that conditional reinforcement by near-miss stimuli increases the persistence of gambling behavior.” They further suggested that near-miss research may have been a misguided assumption from the beginning.

The authors acknowledged that near-misses could cause heightened brain activity, as well as excitement. However, this cannot directly be connected with the need to gamble. Whether or not near-misses do cause prolonged gambling cannot be adequately backed up, as these effects appear limited or non-existent at all.

Jeffrey Pislak revealed to Medical Xpress that while casinos are in no shortage of tools at their disposal to convince people to gamble, near misses may not be among them for most people. Further, he cautioned that although his group was unable to show the near-miss effect, it does not eliminate the vulnerability of gamblers to be exploited via other means.

Counter-Argument

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) showed that people are likely to make riskier choices when their part of the brain that regulates the production of dopamine is in low activity. The individuals under study participated in a simulated gambling game. The results showed that these individuals were more likely to opt for risky options in moments when their neurons were in almost zero activity.

These researchers concluded that the minute-by-minute variations in the dopamine production in these subjects might be the product of evolution. This renders humans more unpredictable and places them in a better position to handle changing times.