Odds on: Ten ways to help prevent problem gambling

[Please note: The following article was written with Dr. Michael Auer]

Problem gambling has become a major issue in many countries worldwide. In this short article we provide ten ways to help prevent problem gambling.

Raise the minimum age of all forms of commercial gambling to 18 years – Research has consistently shown that the younger a person starts to gamble, the more likely they are to develop gambling problems. Stopping problem gambling in adolescence is a key step in preventing problem gambling in the first place. Any venue or website that hosts gambling games should have effective age verification procedures.

Restrict the most harmful types of gambling – Most research shows that gambling activities which can be gambled on continuously such as slot machines tend to be far more problematic than discontinuous games such as weekly lotteries. More harmful forms of gambling should be restricted to dedicated gambling venues rather than housed in non-dedicated gambling premises (such as supermarkets, cafes, and restaurants).

Educate players to pre-commit when engaging in the most harmful types of gambling – Ideally, the most harmful forms of gambling should have mandatory limit-setting options for players to set their own voluntary time and money limits when playing the games. Gambling operators can also use mandatory loss limits to keep gambling expenditure to a minimum.

Take responsibility for where problem gambling lies – While all individuals are ultimately responsible for their own gambling behaviour, other stakeholders – including the gambling industry – have control over the structural and situational characteristics of gambling products. Government policymakers and legislators have a responsibility to ensure that gambling products are tightly regulated and to ensure that any given jurisdiction has the infrastructure to keep gambling problems to a minimum. Gambling operators are responsible for all advertising and marketing and need to ensure that the content is socially responsible and promotes responsible gambling. Within gambling venues, all practices and procedures should be socially responsible (such as not giving free alcohol while gambling, and no ATM machines on the gaming floor).

Put social responsibility at the heart of gambling operating practice – The most socially responsible gambling operators always puts player protection and harm minimisation at the heart of their business. They need to provide all information about their products so that individuals can make an informed choice about whether to gamble in the first place. They should advertise their products responsibly and provide their clientele with tools to aid responsible gambling, and provide help and guidance for those who think they are developing a gambling problem or have one.

Raise awareness about gambling among health practitioners and the general public – Problem gambling may be perceived as a somewhat ‘grey’ area in the field of health. However, there is an urgent need to enhance awareness about gambling-related problems within the general public and the medical and health professions.

Identify at-risk players – Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are common approaches applied in behavioural analysis across many industries. Online gambling and personalized land-based gambling operators can detect harmful behavioural patterns such as chasing losses or binge gambling. Such players can be excluded from direct marketing, specific types of games, and/or contacted to prevent the development of problem gambling.

Use personalized feedback – Research across many areas such as sports, health behaviour, as well as gambling has shown that personalized feedback can effectively change behaviour. Using behavioural data available in online gambling and personalized land-based venues, gamblers can be informed in real-time about behavioural changes in order to make them more aware and use pre-commitment tools such as limit-setting and/or self-exclusion.   

Set up both general and targeted gambling prevention initiatives – The goals of gambling intervention are to (i) prevent gambling-related problems, (ii) promote informed, balanced attitudes, and choices, and (iii) protect vulnerable groups. The guiding principles for action on gambling are therefore prevention, health promotion, harm reduction, and personal and social responsibility. This includes:

• General awareness raising (e.g. public education campaigns through advertisements on television, radio, newspapers).
• Targeted prevention (e.g. education programs and campaigns for particularly vulnerable populations such as senior citizens, adolescents, ethnic minorities).
• Awareness raising within gambling establishments (e.g. brochures and leaflets describing problem gambling, indicative warning signs, where help for problems can be sought such as problem gambling helplines, referral service, telephone counselling web-based chatrooms for problem gamblers, and outpatient treatment).
• Training materials (e.g. training videos about problem gambling shown in schools, job centres).

Educate and training those working in the gambling industry about problem gambling – All gaming personnel in any gambling establishments from shop retailers to croupiers should receive ongoing training regarding responsible gambling and problem gambling.

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Auer, M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Behavioral tracking tools, regulation and corporate social responsibility in online gambling. Gaming Law Review and Economics, 17, 579-583.

Auer, M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Voluntary limit setting and player choice in most intense online gamblers: An empirical study of gambling behaviour. Journal of Gambling Studies, 29, 647-660.

Auer, M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2014). Personalised feedback in the promotion of responsible gambling: A brief overview. Responsible Gambling Review, 1, 27-36.

Auer, M., Malischnig, D. & Griffiths, M.D. (2014). Is ‘pop-up’ messaging in online slot machine gambling effective? An empirical research note. Journal of Gambling Issues, 29, 1-10.

Auer, M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2015). Testing normative and self-appraisal feedback in an online slot-machine pop-up message in a real-world setting. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 339. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00339.

Auer, M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2015). The use of personalized behavioral feedback for problematic online gamblers: An empirical study. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1406. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01406.

Auer, M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2016). Personalized behavioral feedback for online gamblers: A real world empirical study. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1875. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01875.

Griffiths, M.D. (2017). Evaluating responsible gambling tools using behavioural tracking data. Casino and Gaming International, 31, 41-45.

Griffiths, M.D. (2016). Gambling advertising, responsible gambling, and problem gambling: A brief overview. Casino and Gaming International, 27, 57-60.

Griffiths, M.D. & Auer, M. (2016). Should voluntary self-exclusion by gamblers be used as a proxy measure for problem gambling? Journal of Addiction Medicine and Therapy, 2(2), 00019.

Griffiths, M.D., Harris, A. & Auer, M. (2016). A brief overview of behavioural feedback in promoting responsible gambling. Casino and Gaming International, 26, 65-70.

Harris, A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2017). A critical review of the harm-minimisation tools available for electronic gambling. Journal of Gambling Studies, 33, 187–221.

Oehler, S., Banzer, R., Gruenerbl, A., Malischnig, D., Griffiths, M.D. & Haring, C. (2017). Principles for developing benchmark criteria for staff training in responsible gambling. Journal of Gambling Studies, 33, 167-186.

Wood, R.T.A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2015). Understanding positive play: An exploration of playing experiences and responsible gambling practices. Journal of Gambling Studies, 31, 1715-1734.

Wood, R.T.A., Shorter, G.W. & Griffiths, M.D. (2014). Rating the suitability of responsible gambling features for specific game types: A resource for optimizing responsible gambling strategy. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 12, 94–112.

“Just one more thing”: The psychology of ‘Columbo’

My favourite TV detective has always been Columbo (played by Peter Falk). I have watched every single one of the 69 episodes (as my family will attest) many times. While I am working, I will often have Columbo on in the background in the way that other people have music on in the background (although I do the latter as well). For those reading this that have not come across Columbo, here is a brief synopsis from Wikiquote:

“Columbo (1968, 1971-1978, 1989-2003) was an American crime fiction television show about Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. He uses his deferential and absent-minded persona to lull criminal suspects into a false sense of security, by harassing and pestering suspects non-stop – without letting them know that they’re suspects – under the pretense that he’s simply being a pesky detective, in order to spy on them and agitate them into giving up clues”.

I have asked myself many times why I love the iconic show so much and it’s hard to put my finger on any single reason. One of the things I love about the show is that almost all the episodes are a ‘reverse whodunit’ (often referred to as an ‘open mystery’) in which the viewer knows the identity of the murderer(s) and we watch to see how Lt. Columbo uncovers who the killer or killers are. (I say “almost all” because there are actually a few episodes that are more typical ‘whodunits’ such as 1976’s ‘Last Salute To The Commodore’, 1992’s ‘No Time To Die’ [involving a kidnapping rather than a murder] and 1994’s ‘Undercover’). Another aspect I love is the inherent contradictions in Lt. Columbo’s day-to-day behaviour. His dishevelled clothing (the infamous beaten-up raincoat), his apparently bumbling absent-minded nature, and his habit of going off-topic in conversations, but knowing that he is actually one of the most astute and clever detectives that you are ever likely to meet (he would no-doubt fit the description of the stereotypical ‘absent-minded professor’). As a psychologist I find him fascinating. As an article about Columbo on the Cult TV Lounge rightly notes:

“The emphasis is on the psychological duel between detective and suspect, with (mercifully) no interest in social commentary and few concessions to the ‘realism’ that would become more and more of a fetish in TV cop shows during the course of the 70s. This is pure entertainment and it’s all the better for it”.

And finally, it is Lt. Columbo’s brilliant trademark ‘false exits’ that wrongfoot all the murderers. After most informal interrogations with the murderer, Columbo leaves the scene, only to return a few seconds later with the opening gambit of “there’s just one more thing” (or a variant of the phrase) only for it to be the most important question that he “forgot to ask”. As an obituary at the In The Dark website on Peter Falk noted:

“The more trivial the “thing” is, the more damning it proves. As an application of psychology, it’s a superb tactic and it slowly but surely grinds down the criminal’s resistance. Often the murderer’s exasperation at Columbo’s relentless badgering leads to rash actions and errors; the second murder, if there is one, is never as carefully planned as the first”.

As the selected (emboldened) quotes above show, psychology is an integral part of Columbo’s appeal. I was also surprised to find that clinical psychologists and forensic psychologists have used Lt. Columbo’s modus operandi in their day-to-day work. (In fact, even some writers claim that if you want to be a better writer you should watch Columbo according to an article by Shahan Mufti in the New York Times; also, a number of marketing gurus claim that Lt. Columbo can teach marketers a thing or two – check out ‘10 things marketeers can learn from Columbo’). For instance, in an article on motivational interviewing (MI) via the Australian Mental Health Academy describe the ‘Columbo approach’:

“Proponents of motivational interviewing owe a debt of gratitude to the 1970s television series Columbo…[Columbo] was a master of the skill of ‘deploying discrepancies’, and MI therapists/practitioners can use the same skill to get clients to help them make sense of their (the clients’) discrepancies. With the Columbo approach, an interviewer makes a curious enquiry about discrepant behaviours without being judgmental or blaming. In a non-confrontational manner, information that is contradictory is juxtaposed, allowing the therapist to address discrepancies between what clients say and their behaviour without evoking defensiveness or resistance. Wherever possible when deploying discrepancies, practitioners are encouraged to end the reflection on the side of change, as clients are more likely to elaborate on the last part of the statements”

The article then goes on to explicitly describe specific MI interventions using the ‘Columbo approach’. Another online article by Greg Lhamon (‘A simple trick to make a powerful last impression’) describes the ‘Columbo Technique’. Here is an abridged version:

“One way in which you can leave someone with a powerful last impression is to use…“the Columbo Technique”…named after the lovable yet shrewd TV detective from the 1970s…He was unassuming and appeared almost absent-minded as he questioned a murder suspect. Yet his seemingly random line of questioning was the process by which he built an airtight case against the suspect. At the conclusion of every interview, he did something unique: he’d thank the suspect profusely, step toward the door, stop, and then turn back, and say, “Oh, just one more thing.” Then he’d ask one last question, a particularly damning question that let the suspect know that Lieutenant Columbo was onto him. Like every form of good communication, sincerity is critical. It cannot be contrived. The goal is simply to make a strong, memorable point, not to manipulate someone. The process is simple: (1) hold back a critical piece of information and reserve it for the end of the meeting, (2) right before you part company, share the information or ask a question, and (3) enjoy the response you receive”.

A 2009 article in the American Bar Association Journal reported that the best way to interrogate a suspect is to ‘Think Columbo’. The advice given was that police should focus on what suspects say rather than their behaviour (such as fidgeting, sweating, and averting eyes during an interview). After reviewing interrogation tapes, Professor Ray Bull, a British forensic psychologist told the Times newspaper that British police use an investigative interviewing technique:

“These interviews sound much more like a chat in a bar. It’s a lot like the old Columbo show, you know, where he pretends to be an idiot but he’s gathered a lot of evidence.”

The ABA article also included comments from American psychologist Kevin Colwell, who said that suspects that lie in police interviews “often prepare a script that doesn’t have much detail”. Colwell recommended using interview techniques where the individual undergoing questioning should talk about the event in question more than once “adding details in retelling the event about things such as sounds and smells” and asking the person “to recall the event in reverse” and that:

“Those who tell the truth tend to add 20% to 30% more external detail than do those who are lying. Those who are adept at lying may start to feel more strain if the interviewer introduces evidence throughout the questioning that has been previously uncovered. Detective Columbo, it turns out, was not just made for TV”.

Another reason I love Columbo because a number of episodes featured psychologists and/or psychiatrists as the killer, most of who used their psychological expertise to carry out an ingenious murder. This included the episodes ‘Prescription Murder’ (1968 – the first ever episode; Dr. Ray Flemming who uses his high intelligence rather than his psychiatric expertise to murder his wife), ‘Double Exposure’ (1973; Dr. Bart Kepple, a consumer psychologist who uses subliminal advertising to lure his victim to be killed), ‘A Deadly State Of Mind’ (1975; Dr. Marcus Collier, a psychiatrist who uses hypnosis to make his victim jump from a high rise apartment), ‘How To Dial A Murder’ (1978; Dr. Eric Mason, a behavioural psychologist who uses classical conditioning to train his dogs to kill his victim), and ‘Sex And The Married Detective’ (1998; Dr. Joan Allenby, a sex therapist who uses her knowledge of psychosexual roleplay to ensnare and kill her lover). In one episode (‘How To Dial A Murder’), Columbo and the psychologist Dr. Eric Mason have an interesting exchange:

Dr. Eric Mason: You’re a fascinating man, Lieutenant. Columbo: To a psychologist, sir? Dr. Eric Mason: You pass yourself off as a puppy in a raincoat happily running around the yard digging holes all up in the garden, only you’re laying a mine field and wagging your tail.

As an ex-Professor of Gambling Studies, another aspect that I have noticed is how many episodes of Columbo feature gamblers and gambling that are often integral to the storyline. Gambling is a key feature in the episodes ‘Double Shock’ (1973; the murderer Norman Paris, a banker, is featured at a Las Vegas casino running up gambling debts), ‘A Friend in Deed’ (1974; the murderer Mark Halperin, a deputy police commissioner, is shown in his opening scene to be a regular casino gambler), ‘Uneasy Lies The Crown’ (1990; the murderer, Dr. Wesley Corman is a dentist and a compulsive gambler), ‘Death Hits The Jackpot’ (1991; photographer and murder victim Freddy Brower wins a $30 million on the lottery and is killed by his uncle Leon Lamarr), ‘A Bird In The Hand’ (1992; would-be murderer Harold McCain, a compulsive gambler tries to murder his millionaire uncle, owner of a US football team), ‘All in The Game’ (1993; murder victim Nick Franco is a playboy and high stakes poker player killed by his lover Laura Staton), and ‘Strange Bedfellows’ (1995; Randy McVeigh the murder victim owes money for gambling debts to the Mafia and is killed by his brother Graham who has ‘inherited’ his brother’s debt).

In another episode (‘Troubled Waters’, 1975), it turns out that the killer (Hayden Danzinger, an autocar executive) is also a regular casino gambler but this only comes to light late in the episode when Lt. Columbo talks to his wife (Sylvia Danzinger). Here we learn that Lt. Columbo thinks about slot machines:

Columbo: You see that fellow over there playing the slot machines? Waste of money. I’ve played it 44 times. I won once right at the beginning and I never won again. Sylvia Danzinger: You can’t beat ‘em. I don’t even try. Columbo: You’re not a gambler? Sylvia Danzinger: No, I prefer more quiet activities. Columbo: That’s funny. I was under the impression you and your husband went to Las Vegas quite a few times. Sylvia Danzinger: Oh, no. Hayden goes often but without me. I wouldn’t be caught dead there.

I’ve often wondered if gambling was an important issue (positive or negative) for Peter Falk in his private life, because when he wasn’t playing Lt. Columbo, it wasn’t unusual for him to be in gambling-related acting roles. Most notably, he played an ageing bookmaker Vinnie in the 1988 film Money Kings (also known under the title Vig, a film about the illegal world of gambling), and the 1988 film Pronto he played Harry Arno, a sports bookmaker who stole money from the local mafia boss Jimmy Capatorto. He also played the poker player Waller in a 1960 episode of Have Gun – Will Travel (‘Poker Fiend‘), and in the 1970 film Husbands he played Archie Black, one of three men undergoing mid-life crises following the death of their friend who then who all go to Europe to gamble, drink, and womanise.

If you’ve got this far, I’ll just leave you with the answers to a couple of my favourite Columbo trivia questions. The most asked question concerning Lt. Columbo (like Inspector Morse) is what was his first name. (When asked the same question in the series itself, Columbo would answer ‘Lieutenant’!). Lt. Columbo never once revealed his first name verbally in the series but did once flash his police badge in an early episode (‘Dead Weight’; Episode 3, Series 1) and accidentally revealed his name was Frank. The second most asked question is how Peter Falk lost his eye. Falk had his eye removed at the age of three years (due to cancer) and had a glass eye for the rest of his life. Although Falk had a glass eye, fans debated for years whether Lt. Columbo had only one eye. The answer was revealed in the 25th anniversary episode (‘A Trace of Murder’) when Lt. Columbo asked the murderer (Patrick Kinsley, a forensic expert) to look at something with him because “three eyes are better than one”!

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Burns, S. (2016). The Columbo Episode Guide. Located at: http://www.columbo-site.freeuk.com/episode.htm

Changing Minds (2013). The Columbo Technique. Located at: http://changingminds.org/techniques/questioning/columbo_technique.htm

Dawidziak, M. (1989). The Columbo Phile. Mysterious Press.

D For Doom (2015). Columbo, Season 1 (1971). Cult TV Lounge, July 3. Located at: http://cult-tv-lounge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/columbo-season-one-1971.html

Haynes, N. (2012). Guide to TV detectives: No.1. The Guardian, January 23. Located at: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/jan/23/natalie-haynes-detectives-columbo

Henley, J. (2013). 10 things marketeers can learn from Columbo – yes, Columbo. Rock The Deadline, November 24. Located at: http://rockthedeadline.com/blog/content-marketing/10-things-marketers-can-learn-from-columbo-yes-columbo/

Mental Health Academy (2015). Principles and techniques of motivational interviewing. January 12. Located at: http://www.aipc.net.au/articles/principles-and-techniques-of-motivational-interviewing/

Mufti, S. (2013). Want to write better? Watch Columbo. New York Times (The 6^th Floor), September 25. Located at: http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/want-to-write-better-watch-columbo/?_r=2

Telescoper (2011). In memorium: Peter Falk (1927-2011). In The Dark, https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/in-memoriam-peter-falk-1927-2011/

Weiss, D.C. (2009). The best way to interrogate: Think Columbo. American Bar Association, May 12. Located at: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/the_best_way_to_interrogate_think_columbo/

Wikipedia (2016). Columbo. Located at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo

Wikipedia (2016). List of Columbo episodes. Located at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Columbo_episodes

Wikipedia (2016). Peter Falk. Located at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Falk

Wikiquote (2016). Columbo. Located at: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Columbo

Way up the cost: Will the increased price of National Lottery tickets affect sales?

The following blog is based on a short article that I wrote for Nottingham Trent University’s Expert Opinion column published earlier this year (January 29, 2013) and is a written version of many of the comments I made in national and local  BBC radio interviews yesterday.

This week Camelot Plc increased  the price of a Lotto ticket from £1 to £2 – but will this 100% price increase have any effect on whether people play the bi-weekly game? My own view is that although there may be a dip in overall sales when the price of the tickets first increases, over time, sales are likely to return to pre-price increase levels.

The price of buying a lottery ticket is just one of many inter-connected structural characteristics that help determine whether potential players will play the lottery. Other structural characteristics in gambling activities include the size of the jackpot, the number of smaller prizes, the probability of winning the jackpot and / or smaller prizes, the speed of the game, how quickly players receive their winnings, the ease of playing the game, whether the game is chance-based or requires some skill, the number of chances to gamble on a single event, etc.

The chance of winning the bi-weekly lottery is an incredible one in 14 million. But is playing Lotto a tribute to public innumeracy and totally irrational? Not necessarily. Lotto offers a low-cost chance of winning a very large life-changing amount of money. Many psychologists would argue that playing Lotto is entirely rational behaviour given the small cost involved. Basically, it’s a small cost for millions of people buying hope. More importantly, we know that most players don’t think about the actual probability of winning but concentrate on the amount that could be won (i.e., the jackpot size). Players may also rationalize that the cost of a ticket is still cheaper than buying a pint of lager in a pub or a coffee atStarbucks.

Jackpot size is one of the most important factors in whether people play the lotto. The fact that the ticket price is doubling doesn’t take away the fact that there will still be an enormous jackpot. Additionally, to soften the blow of the increased price, the amount that can be won for matching three numbers will increase from £10 to £25. This again is likely to help sales maintenance. And if people do feel that £2 is too much for a single ticket, there are plenty of other games in the national lottery portfolio to choose from.

Another factor that is important in lottery profitability for the operators is that we tend to overestimate positive outcomes and underestimate negative ones. If someone is told they have a one in 14 million chance of being killed that day they would hardly give it a second thought because the chances are tiny. Given the same probability of winning Lotto people suddenly become over-optimistic (“It could be you!”).

The media also plays a part. By providing widespread coverage for the few huge winners, it helps us forget the millions of people who lost! Finally, for regular players who choose the same numbers every week, they become ‘entrapped’ fearing that the one week they don’t play will be the week their numbers will come up. Players who have picked the same numbers for years are still likely to play despite the price increase for the same reason.

The bottom line is that Camelot will have done lots of market research to determine whether players will be prepared to pay more money to play Lotto. Major decisions about pricing are key to future success and increased profits. If people stop playing Lotto in their masses, a return to a lower price will be inevitable. However, my guess is that most current Lotto players will continue to play a game as the thought of winning millions of pounds outweighs the price increase.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Arkes, H.R. & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35, 124-140.

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). The National Lottery and instant scratchcards: A psychological perspective. The Psychologist: The Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 10, 26-29.

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). Selling hope: The psychology of the National Lottery. Psychology Review, 4, 26-30..

Griffiths, M.D. (2008). Problem gambling and European lotteries. In M. Viren (Ed.), Gaming in New Market Environment. pp. 126-159. New York: Macmillan Palgrave.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). The effect of winning large jackpots on human behaviour. Casino and Gaming International, 6(4), 77-80.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Gambling, luck and superstition: A brief psychological overview. Casino and Gaming International, 7(2), 75-80.

Griffiths, M.D. & Wood, R.T.A. (2001). The psychology of lottery gambling. International Gambling Studies, 1, 27-44.

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207-233.

Langer, E.J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 311-328.

Langer, E.J. & Roth, J. (1975). The effect of sequence outcome in a chance task on the illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 951-955.

Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1971). Belief in the law of small numbers. Psychological Bulletin, 76, 105-110.

Walker, M.B. (1992). The Psychology of Gambling. Pergamon, Oxford.

Wagenaar, W. (1988). Paradoxes of Gambling Behaviour. Erlbaum, London.

Wood, R.T.A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2004). Adolescent lottery and scratchcard players: Do their attitudes influence their gambling behaviour? Journal of Adolescence, 27, 467-475.

Play’s cool? Is the type of game played important in the development of gambling addictions?

Earlier today, I (and my research colleague Michael Auer) had a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology arguing that the type of game that people gamble on is irrelevant in the acquisition, development, and maintenance of pathological gambling. We noted that anyone coming into the gambling studies field from a psychological perspective would probably conclude from reading the literature that problem and pathological gambling is associated with particular game types. More specifically, there appears to be a line of thinking in the gambling studies field that casino-type games (and particularly slot machines) are more likely to be associated with problem gambling than lottery-type games.

We argued that the most important factors along with individual susceptibility and risk factors of the individual gambler are the structural characteristics relating to the speed and frequency of the game (and more specifically event frequency, bet frequency, event duration and payout interval) rather than the type of game. Event frequency refers to the number of events that are available for betting and gambling within any given time period. For example, a lottery draw may occur once a week but a slot machine may allow 15 chances to gamble inside one minute. In this example, slot machine gambling has a higher event frequency than lottery gambling. Bet frequency refers to the number of bets or gambles placed in any given time period. Using lottery playing as example, Dr. Jonathan Parke and I noted in a 2007 book chapter on structural characteristics, that multiple tickets (e.g., 10 tickets) can usually be purchased as frequently as desired before any single lottery draw. In this instance, bet frequency would be equal to 10 but event frequency would be equal to 1. Therefore, event frequency can often be much lower than bet frequency and it is possible for players to spend more than they can afford even with a low event frequency.

Dr. Parke and I have stated that further empirical research is needed into the relationship between event frequency and bet frequency. This is because researchers often assume that event frequency and bet frequency have a strong relationship (i.e., the higher number of betting/gambling events – the higher the frequency of betting/gambling). However, this may not be the case.

Another important gaming parameter is event duration. This refers to how fast the event in question is (e.g., a reel spin on a slot machine might last three seconds). Here, it is important to note that duration of the betting/gambling event is different from event frequency (although they may be inextricably linked in so much as the length of a betting event will obviously limit the frequency with which they can take place). Again, Dr Parke and I noted that a betting event lasting two hours (e.g., a soccer game) could not have an event frequency greater than one in any 2-hour period but could have a betting frequency of over 100 with the advent of in-play betting.

In-play betting and gambling (which I examined in a previous blog) refers to the wagering on an event that has started but has not yet finished. This means gamblers can continue to bet on an event (e.g., a soccer or cricket match) and perhaps more importantly, adapt their bets according to how the event is progressing.  For instance, in the UK, during the playing of almost any soccer match, a gambler can bet on everything from who is going to score the first goal, what the score will be after 30 minutes of play, how many yellow cards will be given during the game and/or in what minute of the second half will the first free kick be awarded. What I argued in a previous blog is that ‘in-play’ gambling activities have taken what was traditionally a discontinuous form of gambling – where a gambler made one bet every weekend on the result of the game – to one where a player can gamble continuously again and again. In short, the same game has been turned from what was a low event frequency gambling activity into a potentially high frequency one (and gone from an activity that had little association with problem gambling to one where problem gambling is far more likely among excessive in-play gamblers).

Another important (and related) structural characteristic is payout interval. This is the time between the end of the betting event (i.e., the outcome of the gamble) and the winning payment (if there is one). The frequency of playing when linked with two other factors – the result of the gamble (win or loss) and the actual time until winnings are received – exploits the psychological principles of learning. This process of operant conditioning conditions habits by rewarding (i.e., reinforcing) behaviour (i.e., through presentation of a reward such as money). To produce high rates of response, those schedules which present rewards intermittently (random and variable ratio schedules) have shown to be most effective. Since a number of gambling activities (most notable slot machines) operate on random and variable ratio schedules it is unsurprising that excessive gambling can occur.

To highlight the irrelevance of game type, consider the following two examples that demonstrate that it is the structural characteristics rather than the game type that is critical in the acquisition, development and maintenance of problem and pathological gambling for those who are vulnerable and/or susceptible. A “safe” slot machine could be designed in which no-one would ever develop a gambling problem. The simplest way to do this would be to ensure that whoever was playing the machine could not press the ‘play button’ or pull the lever more than once a week. An enforced structural characteristic of an event frequency of once a week would almost guarantee that players could not develop a gambling problem. Alternatively, a problematic form of lottery could be designed where instead of the draw taking place weekly, bi-weekly or daily, it would be designed to take place once every few minutes. Such an example is not hypothetical and resembles lottery games that already exist in the form of rapid-draw lottery games like keno.

The general rule is that the higher the event frequency, the more likely it is that the gambling activity will cause problems for the individual (particularly if the individual is susceptible and vulnerable). Problem and pathological gambling are essentially about rewards, and the speed and frequency of those rewards. Almost any game could be designed to either have high event frequencies or low event frequencies. Therefore, the more potential rewards there are, the more problematic and addictive an activity is likely to be and this is irrespective of game type as games such as diverse as lotteries and slot machines could have identical event frequencies and event durations.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Griffiths, M.D. (1993). Fruit machine gambling: The importance of structural characteristics. Journal of Gambling Studies, 9, 101-120.

Griffiths, M.D. (1994). The role of cognitive bias and skill in fruit machine gambling. British Journal of Psychology, 85, 351-369.

Griffiths, M.D. (1999). The psychology of the near miss (revisited): A comment on Delfabbro and Winefield. British Journal of Psychology, 90, 441-445.

Griffiths, M.D. (2008). Impact of high stake, high prize gaming machines on problem gaming. Birmingham: Gambling Commission.

Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Mind games (A brief psychosocial overview of in-play betting. i-Gaming Business Affiliate, June/July, 44.

Griffiths, M.D. & Auer, M. (2013). The irrelevancy of game-type in the acquisition, development and maintenance of problem gambling. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 621. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00621.

Griffiths, M.D. & Wood, R.T.A. (2001). The psychology of lottery gambling. International Gambling Studies, 1, 27-44.

Meyer, G., Hayer, T. & Griffiths, M.D. (2009). Problem Gaming in Europe: Challenges, Prevention, and Interventions. New York: Springer.

Parke, J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2006). The psychology of the fruit machine: The role of structural characteristics (revisited). International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 4, 151-179.

Parke, J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2007). The role of structural characteristics in gambling.  In G. Smith, D. Hodgins & R. Williams (Eds.), Research and Measurement Issues in Gambling Studies. pp.211-243. New York: Elsevier.

Luck’s familiar: What is the role of luck in gambling?

Gambling and luck have long been inextricably intertwined yet there has been surprisingly little empirical research. Luck has a mysterious quality and the degree to which people believe in it has profound personal, political, and financial outcomes. Historically, luck was considered a gift of the gods, to be given or withheld at their whim. Despite the relative lack of research, there are countless everyday examples of the association between gambling and luck including the use of lucky charms to the saying lucky phrases. In fact, it could perhaps be argued that there are not many gamblers who don’t subscribe to some sort of belief in fortune. Nowadays, despite statistical laws governing coin tossing, dice throwing, or the spin of the roulette wheel, many gamblers still believe the odds can be overcome by having “Lady Luck” on their side.

In our everyday experience it can seem that some people “have all the luck” and others appear to be jinxed. We can all think of lucky people who seem to be in the right place at the right time, meet the right people, win all the money at the gaming tables, and go from one success to another. I read a news story on the Internet highlighting that luck is indeed about being in the right place at the right time. The story concerned a waitress at a Las Vegas casino who won $35 million during her lunch break. After playing for 15 minutes, she won the largest slot jackpot payout ever. However, only three months later, her car was hit by a drunk driver who had 17 previous arrests for drunk driving. She was seriously injured and her older sister was killed. This time she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When people experience long winning or losing streaks while gambling they then evoke what they believe to be a second causal factor – luck. While luck tends to even itself out over the long run, people naturally focus on the short run and on their fluctuations. Because gambling involves randomness, people will often blame or chalk up their luck to some random event that coincided with how they fared at a certain gambling session. A lucky person is someone who wins many times in succession. The same will happen when it is a gambler’s lucky day with their lucky number, lucky colour, lucky table and/or lucky dealer. Most of these ‘lucky’ events are little more than ‘illusory correlations’ such as noticing that the last three winning visits to the casino were all when the gambler wore a particular item of clothing or it was on a particular day of the week. In short, “good luck” brings longer sequences of winning and “bad luck’ brings longer sequences of losing. People tend to assume that these winning or losing streaks are operating independent of chance. Taken from this perspective, luck and chance are two different but occasionally interfering causal factors that influence events.

Given people’s widespread beliefs about luck, there has been relatively little psychological research. Over 20 years ago, the Dutch psychologist Willem Wagenaar noted that the notion of causelessness is so alien to us that in the absence of a known cause we tend to attribute events to imaginary causes like luck and chance. Being lucky and winning while gambling are often perceived as very similar things. Furthermore, in the minds of many people, luck and chance often seem to act as real causes. Such notions are defined in terms of absence of knowledge on which the prediction of future events could be based. The throw of a dice, the spin of a slot machine or roulette wheel, are considered to be chance events because there is insufficient knowledge to predict the outcome – not because they have no physical causes.

Professor Richard Wiseman at the University of Hertfordshire has spent many years studying luck and believes he’s discovered four principles of luck and knows how to help people improve their good fortune. The results of this work reveal that people are not born lucky. Instead, lucky people are unconsciously using four basic principles to create good fortune in their lives. These could also be applied to gambling situations. Wiseman’s research has involved him being with those who define themselves as either lucky or unlucky, and examining the reasons why. Wiseman started by asking randomly chosen UK shoppers whether they had been lucky or unlucky in several different areas of their lives including their careers, relationships, home life, health, and financial matters. Of those he surveyed, 50% considered themselves lucky and 16 percent unlucky. Those lucky or unlucky in one area were more likely to report the same in other areas. Most experienced either consistent good or bad fortune. Professor Wiseman therefore that concluded luck could not simply be the outcome of chance events.

So what do lucky people do that is different from unlucky people? Firstly, lucky people maximise chance opportunities. They are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences. Secondly, lucky people listen to lucky hunches. They make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. For example, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts. Thirdly, lucky people expect good fortune. They are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way. Finally, lucky people turn bad luck into good. They employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on the ill fortune, and take control of the situation.

So can “lucky” people win at gambling without trying? Professor Wiseman tested this proposition by getting 700 people to gamble on the National Lottery. The “lucky” participants were twice as confident of winning as the “unlucky” ones. However, results showed that only 36 participants actually won any money, and these were split evenly between the two groups. The study showed that being lucky doesn’t change the laws of probability!

Research has also shown that lucky people use body language and facial expressions that other people find attractive. For instance, they smile twice as much as the unlucky, and engage in more eye contact. In addition, they are more likely have a broad network of friends and take advantage of favourable opportunities. Lucky people view misfortune as short-lived and overcome it quickly. In short, self-fulfilling prophecies appear to affect lives. Those who expect to fail may not even try. Lucky people try to achieve their goals even when the odds are against them. Luck is not a magical ability or a gift from the gods. It is a mind-set, a way of perceiving and dealing with life. This is something that gamblers should know and try to apply to their day-to-day gambling activity.

Gamblers are great believers in luck. Dr Wagenaar found that gamblers are so wedded to their belief in luck that in some circumstances they refuse to improve their odds. For instance, in the game of blackjack, there is a well-known optimal strategy for not losing. But in order to win over the long run, a gambler must count the cards that have been played and calculate whether there are more high or low cards left in the deck. More high cards favour the player, so gamblers should increase their bets. More low cards favour the house, so gamblers should decrease their bets. However, Wagenaar’s research demonstrated that the vast majority of players do not do this.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Griffiths, M.D. (1994). The role of cognitive bias and skill in fruit machine gambling. British Journal of Psychology, 85, 351-369.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Gambling, luck and superstition: A brief psychological overview. Casino and Gaming International, 7(2), 75-80.

Langer, E. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Behavior, 32, 311-328.

Langer, E.J. (1983).  The Psychology of Control. London: Sage.

Wagenaar, W.A. (1988). Paradoxes of Gambling Behavior. London: Erlbaum.

Wagenaar, W.A. & Keren, G. (1988). Chance and luck are not the same. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1, 65-75.

Wiseman, R. (2003). The Luck Factor. New York: Hyperion.

Wohl, M.J.A. & Enzle, M.E. (2003). The effects of near wins and near losses on self-perceived personal luck and subsequent gambling behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 184–191

Everyone’s a winner? The role of cognitive biases in lottery playing

Earlier this week, I was interviewed by the Metro newspaper about the psychology of playing the National Lottery.  One reader of the article had a somewhat sarcastic dig at me:

“I happened to glance through the Metro today, whilst waiting for an appointment, and noticed a feature on lotteries. It actually draws on Prof Mark Griffiths from Nottingham Trent University, to deliver this shocking statement ‘Prof Griffiths believes lotteries are a form of gambling’”

Out of context, the statement does sound somewhat banal. However, the point that I was making to the journalist was that many lottery players don’t believe that buying a lottery ticket is really gambling. Studies have shown that if you ask “pure lottery players” (i.e., those people who only play the lottery and don’t engage in any other form of gambling) if they gamble, a large proportion typically answer that they don’t. Lottery players often refer to their behaviour as nothing more than a ‘harmless flutter’. Given that very few people develop problems from weekly or bi-weekly lotteries is a fair and accurate comment. Other lottery players will claim that the activity is not really a form of gambling because the money goes to good causes (which while partly true) doesn’t negate the fact that playing the lottery is a form of gambling.

Over the years I have written many papers and articles on lottery play. In today’s blog I briefly examine some of the cognitive biases and heuristics that have been applied to lottery gambling (excluding the psychology of the near miss that I examined in a previous blog). Heuristics are usually defined as ‘rules-of-thumb’ (i.e. simple ‘if-then’ rules or norms). There are many heuristics (e.g., the illusion of control, the availability bias, the sunk cost bias, the representativeness bias, etc.) that may help explain why lotteries are so appealing to the general public – beyond the basic reason that playing the lottery provides the chance to win a life-changing amount of money (millions of pounds) for a low cost (typically £1). Although the following heuristics are not an exhaustive list, they do contain those cognitive biases and heuristics that are probably most salient to the psychology of lottery gambling:

Illusion of control: Ellen Langer, a very well know American psychologist at Harvard University, defined the illusion of control is an expectancy of success higher than the objective probability would warrant. In essence, her basic assumption was that in some chance settings (e.g., buying a lottery ticket), those conditions that involved factors of choice, involvement, familiarity and/or competition stimulate the illusion of control to produce skill orientations. These observations have been confirmed in both laboratory and natural setting based experiments. For instance, Langer’s seminal 1970s experiments showed that participants would sell previously bought lottery tickets for a higher price if they had picked it themselves as opposed to having it ‘assigned’ by someone else.

Flexible attributions: Flexible attributions are cognitive distortions in which gamblers attribute their successes as due to their own skill and failures as due to some external influence. Research by US psychologixt Thomas Gilovich (Cornell University) demonstrated that gamblers transform their losses into ‘near wins’ and spend far more time discussing their losses and discounting them while bolstering their wins. Professor Gilovich also showed that gamblers display hindsight bias (i.e. they are not surprised by the outcome of a gamble and report they predicted it after the event has happened).

Representativeness bias: The classic work on representativeness bias – by Israeli-US psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky – applies to random samples of data and is where people expect to find a representative relationship between samples drawn from the population and the population itself. For instance, when subjects are asked to create a random sequence of imaginary coin tosses they tend to produce sequences where the proportion of ‘tails’ in a short segment is closer to 0.5 than chance would predict. This particular mechanism may well explain the ‘gambler’s fallacy’, (i.e., the expectation that the probability of winning will increase with the length of an ongoing run of losses).

Availability bias: The availability bias occurs when a person evaluating the probability of a chance event makes the judgment in terms of the ease with which relevant instances come to mind. With regards to the lotteries, winners are often highly publicised. These both give the idea that wins are regular and commonplace when in fact they are rare. A vividly presented case study or example can make a lasting impression.

Sunk cost bias: Another factor that may be important in why lotteries have been so financially successful is the sunk cost bias (also known as entrapment). Entrapment refers to a commitment to a goal that has not yet been reached. The basic premise is to get the person committed to the cause or product as soon as possible. Once a commitment is made, the nature of thought changes. To the converted (in this case the lottery ticket buyer), careful and considered analysis of the situation is likely to be minimal. Lotteries have one great advantage over many other forms of gambling in that many people pick exactly the same numbers each week. In the UK, a newspaper survey reported that 67% of people choose the same numbers each week. Of this figure, the survey reported that 30% chose their regular numbers after an initial random selection and 37% chose the same numbers each week based on birthday dates, house numbers, favourite numbers, etc. However, no details were given about demography of the participants or the sample size.

By picking the same numbers the person may become ‘entrapped’. Each week the player thinks they are coming closer to winning. The winning day is impossible to predict but should the lottery player decide to stop and cut their losses, they are faced with the prospect that the very next week their numbers might come up. The player is thus entrapped and the entrapment become greater as the weeks go by. According to Australian psychologist Dr Michael Walker, people can reach a point where holidays cannot be taken unless arrangements are made for the weekly ticket to be completed and entered. The ‘entrapment’ process is not only known as the ‘sunk cost bias’ but is also another ‘foot-in-the-door’ technique.

These heuristics and biases give some insight into why gamblers do not learn from their past losses and help to explain supposedly ‘irrational’ behaviour. However, heuristics and biases have no predictive value. It is almost impossible to know which heuristic will be applied in a given situation and it is quite possible for the same person to use a different heuristic in the same situation on different occasions.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Arkes, H.R. & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35, 124-140.

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). The National Lottery and instant scratchcards: A psychological perspective. The Psychologist: The Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 10, 26-29.

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). Selling hope: The psychology of the National Lottery. Psychology Review, 4, 26-30.

Griffiths, M.D. (2008). Problem gambling and European lotteries. In M. Viren (Ed.), Gaming in New Market Environment. pp. 126-159. New York: Macmillan Palgrave.

Griffiths, M.D. & Wood, R.T.A. (2001). The psychology of lottery gambling. International Gambling Studies, 1, 27-44.

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207-233.

Langer, E.J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 311-328.

Langer, E.J. & Roth, J. (1975). The effect of sequence outcome in a chance task on the illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 951-955.

Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1971). Belief in the law of small numbers. Psychological Bulletin, 76, 105-110.

Walker, M.B. (1992). The Psychology of Gambling. Pergamon, Oxford.

Wagenaar, W. (1988). Paradoxes of Gambling Behaviour. Erlbaum, London.

Wood, R.T.A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2004). Adolescent lottery and scratchcard players: Do their attitudes influence their gambling behaviour? Journal of Adolescence, 27, 467-475.

Against all odds: The psychology of lottery gambling

Playing on national lottery games is one of the most popular forms of gambling worldwide and they are also a growing in popularity in their many online incarnations. But what is the psychological appeal of an activity where the odds of winning huge jackpot prizes are usually infinitesimal? For instance, the odds of winning the EuroMillions lottery are 76 million to one. I often joke that you would get better odds of Elvis Presley landing on the moon on the back of the Loch Ness Monster!

Most of us have probably wondered what we would do if we ever won the lottery, but the sad fact is that almost all of us won’t ever win even if we play the lottery every week for the rest of our lives. Conventional wisdom says that big jackpot lottery winners should hopefully look forward to a long life of everlasting happiness. However, research studies have found that lottery winners are euphoric very briefly before they settle back to their ‘normal’ level of happiness or unhappiness. This is because happiness is relative. There is a popular belief by some psychologists that in the long run, winning on the lottery will not make you happy. Researchers who study happiness say that everyone has a certain level of happiness that stays relatively constant but can be changed by particular events that make you happy or sad.

For instance, if you are a generally happy person and a close relative dies, research shows that after a few months or so, you will go back to the same happiness level you were previously. However, this works the other way too. Say you are a person who is not very happy in your day-to-day life. You could win the lottery and would probably be happy for a couple of months, but then you would ‘level out’ and go back at your normal unhappiness level.

On a more practical day-to-day level, most of the research on lottery winners has shown that their lives are much better as a result of their life-changing wins but there is also a significant minority of winners who find other problems occur as a result of their instant wealth. They may give up their jobs and move to a more luxurious house in another area. This can lead to a loss of close friends from both the local neighbourhood and from their workplace. There can also be family tensions and arguments over the money and there is always the chance that winners will be bombarded with requests for money from every kind of cause or charity. However, despite potential problems, most of the psychological research (perhaps unsurprisingly) indicates that winners are glad they won.

There are also those groups of people who will view the acquisition of instant wealth as “undeserved”. Basically, when people win the lottery, other people treat them differently, even if the winners don’t move out of the area or carry on in their job. This can lead to envy and resentment, not just from people who know the winners, but also from those in the locality where the winners may move. Thankfully, most large lottery operators have an experienced team of people to help winners adjust to their new life and to minimize potential problems.

It’s unlikely that the downsides of winning the lottery would be enough to put us off playing. Neither is the unlikely probability of winning. Why then – despite the huge odds against – do people persist with their dream of winning the elusive jackpot? Part of the popularity of lotteries in general is that they offer a low-cost chance of winning a very large life-changing amount of money. Without that huge jackpot, very few of us would play.

The probability of winning a large lottery prize is one of the basic risk dimensions that may help us decide whether we gamble in the first place. Some mathematicians say that playing lotteries is a tribute to public innumeracy and that playing the lottery is totally irrational. However, the probabilities of winning something on the National Lottery are fairly high in comparison with other gambling activities, although the chances of winning the jackpot are very small. Therefore, most players don’t think about the actual probability of winning but rely on what we psychologists call ‘heuristic strategies’ – a fancy name for ‘rules of thumb’ – for handling the available information. What most lottery players’ concentrate on is the amount that could be won rather than the probability of doing so.

We also know that the greater the jackpot the more people will gamble. That is why more lottery tickets are sold on rollover weeks because the potential jackpot is huge. Also, by providing lots of coverage for the huge winners, it helps us forget the millions of people who lost!

We also know that as human beings we tend to overestimate positive outcomes and underestimate negative ones. For instance, if someone is told they have a one in 14 million chance of being killed on any particular Saturday night they would hardly give it a second thought because the chances of anything untoward happening are infinitesimal. However, given the same probability of winning the National Lottery and people suddenly become over-optimistic. For instance, one study found that 22% of people thought that if they played the national lottery every week until they died, they would scoop the National Lottery jackpot at some point in their lifetime.

Another factor that may be important in why lotteries are so financially successful is because of the ‘psychology of entrapment’ with people who choose the same numbers every week. By picking the same numbers the person may become trapped into playing every week. Each week the player thinks they are coming closer to winning. The winning day is impossible to predict but should the player decide to stop and cut their losses, they are faced with the prospect that the very next week their numbers might come up. Very simple – but effective – psychology.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). Selling hope: The psychology of the National Lottery. Psychology Review, 4, 26-30.

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). The National Lottery and scratchcards: A psychological perspective. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 10, 23-26.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Gambling, luck and superstition: A brief psychological overview. Casino and Gaming International, 7(2), 75-80.

Griffiths, M.D. & Wood, R.T.A. (2001). The psychology of lottery gambling. International Gambling Studies, 1, 27-44.

Wood, R.T.A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2004). Adolescent lottery and scratchcard players: Do their attitudes influence their gambling behaviour? Journal of Adolescence, 27, 467-475.