Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, ON, Canada; Gambling Research Lab, University of Waterloo, ON, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, ON, Canada; Gambling Research Lab, University of Waterloo, ON, Canada.
Addict Behav. 2021 Jan;112:106598. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106598. Epub 2020 Aug 3.
Multiline slots are popular electronic gaming machines. Research suggests that particular outcomes on these games, namely losses disguised as a wins or LDWs, may make these games particularly alluring to gamblers. LDWs occur when one wins less than they wager, but the machine celebrates these net losses with flashing lines and winning sounds (e.g., bet a dollar, win back a dime). Players are known to somatically, psychologically, and behaviourlly miscategorize LDWs as wins rather than losses. Furthermore, LDWs lead players to overestimate how many times they thought they won during a playing session - leading to what is known as the LDW-triggered win-overestimation effect. In this paper, we analyzed experienced players' win-overestimates from 13 studies after playing slots with different LDW percentages. The combined data showed an inverted U-shaped function for win-overestimates. There appears to be a "sweet spot" for the LDW-triggered win-overestimation effect; wherein, a moderate number of LDWs maximizes this effect, but a high number of LDWs decreases the effect. In Study 2, we confirmed with 132 experienced gamblers that there appears to be maximal win overestimates at around 19.6% LDWs. We conjecture that a high number of LDWs may lead players to see a disconnection between the running total on the machine going down and the number of "wins", leading to more accurate win estimates. This inverted "U" effect for win-overestimates parallels previous research showing that gamblers continue to play for longer during a losing streak following a playing session with a moderate (versus low or high) number of LDWs. LDW-triggered win-overestimates may contribute to the allure of multiline slots -games that cause significant problems for a subset of gamblers.
多线插槽是流行的电子赌博机。研究表明，这些游戏中特定的结果，即损失伪装成胜利或 LDW，可能会使这些游戏对赌徒特别有吸引力。当一个人赢得的钱少于他们下注的钱时，但机器会用闪烁的线条和胜利的声音来庆祝这些净损失（例如，下注 1 美元，赢回 10 美分）。据了解，玩家会将 LDW 错误地归类为胜利而不是损失，无论是在身体上、心理上还是行为上。此外，LDWs 导致玩家高估他们在一局游戏中认为自己赢了多少次——导致了所谓的 LDW 触发的赢高估效应。在本文中，我们分析了 13 项研究中经验丰富的玩家在玩不同 LDW 百分比的老虎机后的赢高估数据。综合数据显示，赢高估呈倒 U 形函数。对于 LDW 触发的赢高估效应似乎存在一个“最佳点”；在这个最佳点，中等数量的 LDWs 可以最大化这种效应，但高数量的 LDWs 会降低这种效应。在研究 2 中，我们用 132 名经验丰富的赌徒证实，在 LDW 约为 19.6%时，似乎会出现最大的赢高估。我们推测，大量的 LDWs 可能会导致玩家看到机器上的累计数下降和“胜利”次数之间的脱节，从而导致更准确的胜利估计。赢高估的这种倒置的“U”形效应与之前的研究相吻合，该研究表明，在一次 LDW 数量适中（与低或高相比）的游戏之后，赌徒在连败期间会继续更长时间地玩游戏。LDW 触发的赢高估可能是多线插槽游戏吸引力的原因之一——这些游戏会给一部分赌徒带来严重的问题。
