Winners Do Not Stop Gambling, but Become Reckless Gamblers

Recent research has demonstrated that those who experience many initial wins when gambling tend to subsequently engage in reckless gambling behaviors, as compared to those with many initial loses. However, the participants in that study were mandated to complete a fixed number of trials, which might have affected their gambling behavior, or their propensity towards recklessness. In this study, we investigated whether prior experiences of winning rather than losing encouraged reckless gambling under more realistic conditions by allowing the participants to quit at any time. The participants who had won most of their previous bets went on to bet more chips than participants who had won fewer bets, even when they were unlikely to win. That is, even though they were allowed to quit gambling at any time, the participants engaged in reckless gambling, as reported in the previous study. These results suggest that the likelihood of reckless gambling depends strongly on having won prior bets.