Electronic gambling machines and dopamine.

Abstract

Multi-line electronic gambling machines (EGMs) are amongst the gambling products showing the strongest associations with problem gambling symptoms. EGMs are characterized by intermittent reinforcement, salient audio-visual effects and high event frequencies. This paper examines the design features of EGMs through the lens of neurocomputational theories of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that playing a central role in substance-use-disorders, which in turn share clinical and behavioral features with disordered gambling. Dopamine is involved in various aspects of learning, motivation and cognition, ranging from reinforcement learning via prediction errors to the signaling of multiple aspects of stimulus saliency and uncertainty. A careful consideration of the design of modern multi-line EGMs reveals the ways in which these products may elicit a host of dopaminergic effects within their nested anticipation-outcome structure. Potential links between neural, cognitive/affective and clinical/behavioral levels of analysis with respect to EGM gambling are outlined, and implications for the clinical features of gambling disorder as well as policy and regulation are discussed.