Facing temptation: The neural correlates of gambling availability during sports picture exposure

Abstract

Nowadays, sports betting has become increasingly available and easy to engage in. Here we examined the neural responses to stimuli that represent sporting events available for betting as compared to sporting events without a gambling opportunity. We used a cue exposure task in which football (soccer) fans (N = 42) viewed cues depicting scheduled football games that would occur shortly after the scanning session. In the "betting" condition, participants were instructed to choose, at the end of each block, the game (and the team) they wanted to bet on. In the "watching" condition, participants chose the game they would prefer to watch. After the scanning session, participants completed posttask rating questionnaires assessing, for each cue, their level of confidence about the team they believed would win and how much they would enjoy watching the game. We found that stimuli representing sport events available for betting elicited higher fronto-striatal activation, as well as higher insular cortex activity and functional connectivity, than sport events without a gambling opportunity. Moreover, games rated with more confidence towards the winning team resulted in greater brain activations within regions involved in affective decision-making (ventromedial prefrontal cortex), cognitive inhibitory control (medial and superior frontal gyri) and reward processing (ventral and dorsal striatum). Altogether, these novel findings offer a sensible simulation of how the high availability of sports betting in today's environment impacts on the reward and cognitive control systems. Future studies are needed to extend the present findings to a sample of football fans that includes a samilar proportion of female and male participants.

Functional neural substrates of football fanaticism: Different pattern of brain responses and connectivity in fanatics

“…This finding was thought to be an indicator of higher engagement of stimulus recognition and the perceptual saliency process for the stimuli associated with reward, and the insula was proposed as a modulator region in recognition of stimuli with or without reward value. 31 Similarly, in conditions with negative and positive emotional valance as in our study design, the dACC may play the critical modulating role of the insula for the recognition of the different types of stimuli that are emotionally laden rather than carrying a reward value.…”

Examining Neural Reactivity to Gambling Cues in the Age of Online Betting

“…Research is thus warranted to extend previous neuroimaging work on gambling cue reactivity by examining how the prospect of actual betting impacts specific brain pathways. Initial strides toward this research direction have been taken by Brevers and colleagues [••96]. These authors reported, through the use of an fMRI cue exposure task (adapted from a food cue reactivity study; [97]), that thinking about a sporting event with the intention of gambling on the outcome, compared with thinking about it with the mere intention of watching it, triggers higher prefrontal, insular and striatal activations in a sample of football (soccer) fans.…”

“…These authors reported, through the use of an fMRI cue exposure task (adapted from a food cue reactivity study; [97]), that thinking about a sporting event with the intention of gambling on the outcome, compared with thinking about it with the mere intention of watching it, triggers higher prefrontal, insular and striatal activations in a sample of football (soccer) fans. Importantly, Brevers et al [••96] used ecological cues (i.e. football games that were occurring in real life in the days following the scan, with the logos and names of the two teams facing each other), and manipulated gambling reward availability/expectancy (participants received additional money if the team they chose to bet on eventually won the game).…”

Commentary on Murch et al. (2020): ‘When viewing is already gambling'—the need for eye‐tracking research to examine sports betting cue–reactivity

“…Initial strides towards this objective have been taken by neuroimaging research on cue–reactivity . Specifically, a recent functional magnetic resonance imaging study has shown that the brain processes information about sporting cues differently, depending on whether sports fans think about a sporting event with the intention of gambling on the outcome or think about it with the intention of merely watching it . From the standpoint of the present commentary, the examination of sports betting, cue–reactivity should greatly benefit from a multi‐level approach, featuring eye‐tracking measurements.…”

“…individuals exposed to visual stimuli on a computer screen). Secondly, because every sports fan can express a degree of confidence in the result of a forthcoming sports event , research should be able to grasp how eye movements are modulated by the level of interest and by the weighing process of deliberative thought towards sports betting cues. Thirdly, in contrast to sexual activity, food, buying, or consuming psychoactive substances, sports betting (and gambling per se ) does not show sensory‐specific satiety effects (i.e.…”