The rapid proliferation of automated gambling in rural Global South communities raises important questions about society’s responses to cosmopolitan change. Individual responses depend on type of transformation as well as context in which it occurs.
Research on perseverative gambling behavior has employed manipulating both reinforcement and inter trial interval (ITI), in simulated slot machines, to examine their impact. Yet only few studies have simultaneously altered both variables at once.
Machines with multiple paylines
Slot machines are gambling games featuring multiple paylines. These lines, typically laid out in different patterns on the screen, define which symbols must appear to win and activated additional paylines can increase both chances of winning as well as total bet, though players generally use all available paylines.
Researchers have identified electronic gaming machines (EGMs) as one of the most risky forms of gambling, as they lead to psychological immersion – where attention is diverted away from peripheral stimuli and goals – potentially encouraging irresponsible gambling behavior.
Participants were provided with money either in cash or voucher form and given access to a simulator that replicated real machines; using this simulator they played two versions of the same game: once with 20 paylines and once without. Post-reinforcement pauses revealed that participants preferred games featuring more loss-delaying wagers (LDWs), perhaps due to believing more losses will lead to greater wins.
Machines with multiple reels
Machines featuring multiple reels allow players to wager on various symbols at once. When a winning combination appears, players receive their payout. Some machines also feature jackpots which are awarded when a certain number of consecutive wins occur and may range from being fixed amounts or percentages of total bet.
Dixon and colleagues conducted an experiment using a slot machine simulator with varying frequencies of near-miss stimuli in order to evaluate if gambling persistence could be increased through visual feedback that approximated wins. They discovered that participants gambled more persistently when their monetary outcome on the simulator more closely resembled what one would expect of a win.
Kassinove and Schare used an updated slot machine analogue to manipulate near miss presentations on a four-reel game where participants competed for points. They found that participants persisted most when near misses occurred 15%, 30% or 45% of trials.
Machines with multiple symbols
Slot machines date back to 1887 when car mechanic Charles Fey created a simple device with three spinning reels adorned with fruits, bells and playing card symbols to encourage players to keep spinning the machine until they hit a winning combination. During Prohibition times these devices would even be disguised as vending machines in order to bypass gambling restrictions.
Memory tapes in slot machines are divided into cells that each hold one symbol. At each step in computation, the head examines both current state and symbol, then either erases, writes new ones over or halts machine operation as appropriate.
Humans are hardwired to seek rewards, so slot machines use near-miss results as an incentive for players to keep playing. Although these near-miss results can feel just as satisfying as winning big, their outcome is determined by a random number generator rather than by any actions by the player himself/herself.
Machines with multiple jackpots
Jackpot machines in casinos are an extremely attractive feature, often drawing players with large sums of money as lures to play them. These machines use random number generators to produce series of numbers which determine which symbols appear on the reels. They also display current jackpot amounts; though no guarantee that anyone wins them. People are drawn in by these jackpots and often become hooked on playing slot machines for this very reason.
To study habit formation within slot machine gambling, a new study collected data from 60 participants who took part in short sessions on an accurate multi-line slot machine simulation. Fixed effects regression methods were then employed to analyze predictors of gambling speed (spin initiation latencies) and betting rigidity–two putative markers of habit formation. As more trials and sessions were gambled upon, participants’ speed and betting rigidity appeared to increase without showing evidence of reinforcing effects from near misses.