Choice Behavior of Nonpathological Women Playing Concurrently Available Slot Machines: Effect of Changes in Payback Percentages

Abstract

In a simulated casino environment, 6 nonpathological women played concurrently available commercial slot machines programmed to pay out at different rates. Participants did not always demonstrate preferences for the higher paying machine. The data suggest that factors other than programmed or obtained rate of reinforcement may control gambling behavior, which should encourage behavior analysts to look beyond direct, contingency-driven explanations of gambling.

Pushing the Limits of Increased Casino Advantage on Slots: An Examination of Performance Effects and Customer Reactions

“…These findings were in line with those produced by Lucas and Singh (2011), in that their simulations indicated that players would not have the wherewithal to detect differences in pars, based solely on outcomes from play. Our findings were also consistent with those from problem gambling researchers, supporting the inability of players to detect differences in the pars via actual outcomes (Haw, 2008; Weatherly & Brandt, 2004; Weatherly et al, 2009). Most notably, the results of the H 0 2 tests and the time series plots fully supported the outcomes produced by prior field research aimed at the measurement of play migration (Lucas, 2019; Lucas & Spilde, 2019a, 2019b).…”

“…In short, these laboratory studies failed to indicate an attenuation to differences in actual payback percentages (Haw, 2008), differences in the number of trials (Weatherly & Brandt, 2004), and sensitivity to differences in pars (Weatherly et al, 2009). In both Weatherly and Brandt (2004) and Weatherly et al (2009), the short duration of play likely influenced the results. Specifically, the limited numbers of trials on the games may have considerably affected the ability of the individuals to detect differences in the results.…”

“…Staying within the problem gambling literature, other researchers have produced results that generally do not support the ability of players to detect differences in the outcomes of games with different pars (Haw, 2008; Weatherly & Brandt, 2004; Weatherly et al, 2009). In short, these laboratory studies failed to indicate an attenuation to differences in actual payback percentages (Haw, 2008), differences in the number of trials (Weatherly & Brandt, 2004), and sensitivity to differences in pars (Weatherly et al, 2009). In both Weatherly and Brandt (2004) and Weatherly et al (2009), the short duration of play likely influenced the results.…”

‘This slot is hotter than that one’: symbolic generalization of slot machine preference in simulated gambling

“…However, human gamblers do not always allocate responding according to the predictions of the Symbolic generalization 3 matching law (Weatherly, Thompson, Hodny, & Meier, 2009). In such cases, differential sensitivity to payback percentage suggests that slot-machine gambling can come under control of additional, rule-governed, contingencies.…”

Understanding the psychology of mobile gambling: A behavioural synthesis

“…One example of this is the matching law (Herrnstein, 1974) and its generalization (Baum, 1974), which attempts to describe how organisms distribute responding to multiple concurrent ratio or interval schedules. There is a literature on response allocation in concurrent slot machines, but findings in this area have been mixed; a number of studies (Coates & Blaszczynski, 2014;Daly et al, 2014;Dixon, Fugelsang, MacLaren, & Harrigan, 2013;Dixon, MacLin, & Daugherty, 2006;Dymond, McCann, Griffiths, Cox, & Crocker, 2012;Zlomke & Dixon, 2006) found evidence consistent with matching, but there is also evidence gamblers undermatch, showing greater (or in some cases, total) equivalence between machines that diverge either in rate of return to player or rate of reinforcement on a ratio schedule (Coates & Blaszczynski, 2013;Daly et al, 2014;Lucas & Singh, 2012;Weatherly, Thompson, Hodny, Meier, & Dixon, 2009). In addition, matching is highly susceptible to being overridden by contextual cues (Nastally, Dixon, & Jackson, 2010;Zlomke & Dixon, 2006) although this appears to weaken with extended exposure to the contingencies of a machine (Hoon & Dymond, 2013).…”