Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Lady Luck: The Rise Of Women Problem Gamblers, Antonia Massa

Capstones

Gambling addiction, once considered a nearly exclusively male affliction, is becoming more common among women. This story looks at the lives and addictions of two women problem gamblers. The project includes text, audio, images and a web app for smartphones, designed to help women who think they may have a gambling problem.

A Behavioral And Biopsychological Investigation Of The Role Of The Illusion Of Control And Perseverative Chasing Between Problem And Non-Problem Gamblers, Brett Evan Bauchner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The illusion of control is associated with problem gambling. The perception that one is in control of a random event, when in reality there is no control, can facilitate problem gambling behaviors. The degree or extent of control may activate physiological mechanism of increased excitation and reward that reinforce gambling. In the studies presented here, performance on simulated gambling tasks that provided varying levels gambling participation were compared to physiological measures of behavioral activation in problem gambler and nongamblers. Participants watched video clips of three horseraces scenarios that permitted different degrees of participation and control over wagering. Concurrently saliva samples …

Do Expected Marginal Revenue Products For National Hockey League Players Equal Their Price In Daily Fantasy Games?, Benjamin Goldman

Award Winning Economics Papers

The equality between wages and marginal revenue products is a backbone of competitive labor markets. This study will seek to test the congruity between the two in the market for players in daily fantasy hockey games. Any observed and statistically significant incongruity would lead to the conclusion that an individual can earn long run profit playing daily fantasy games. Both fixed effects and pooled regressions are employed to isolate inequalities between prices and expected marginal revenue products for players in daily fantasy hockey games. Any deviation of such could potentially be explained by utility maximizing gamblers or incomplete information. Robust …

Learning From Las Vegas: Gambling, Technology, Capitalism, And Addiction, David T. Courtwright

Occasional Papers

Gambling has always led to addictive behavior in some individuals. However, the number and types of addicted gamblers have changed over time and in response to specific gambling environments. Recent work by historians, journalists, and anthropologists, reviewed in this paper, suggests that the situation worsened during the modern era, and that it has become worse still during the last half century. Technological, organizational, and marketing innovations have “weaponized” gambling, increasing both the likelihood that people will gamble and that they will gamble compulsively—a phenomenon with parallels to several other consumer products, including processed food, digitized games, and psychoactive drugs.

The Expected Value Of An Advantage Blackjack Player, Kamron Jensen

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The following paper takes an in-depth look at the gambling game Blackjack, also known as Twenty-One, and asks the question: If the game is beatable, how much can one expect to win playing Blackjack? This paper starts by explaining how the game is played and continues by telling of how Thorpe (1962) discovered that the game can be beaten. It then goes into detail of how the game has changed over the past 50 years and what it takes to beat the game today. To find the expected value of a winning strategy, I create a computer program to run …

Should Las Vegas Pursue Establishing An Online Gaming Cluster? An Exploratory Study, Laimonas Gubista

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this research was to determine whether (1) clustering benefits cities, (2) Las Vegas is a cluster of the worldwide gaming industry, and (3) online gaming cluster is forming in Las Vegas in spite of unfavorable business environment. The exploratory study should be useful to lawmakers and business leaders in shaping Nevada’s future. It could provide essential information focusing on whether Las Vegas should actively pursue an online gaming cluster.

Risky Business: Rhesus Monkeys Exhibit Persistent Preferences For Risky Options, Eric R. Xu, Jerald D. Kralik

Dartmouth Scholarship

Rhesus monkeys have been shown to prefer risky over safe options in experiential decision-making tasks. These findings might be due, however, to specific contextual factors, such as small amounts of fluid reward and minimal costs for risk-taking. To better understand the factors affecting decision-making under risk in rhesus monkeys, we tested multiple factors designed to increase the stakes including larger reward amounts, distinct food items rather than fluid reward, a smaller number of trials per session, and risky options with greater variation that also included non-rewarded outcomes. We found a consistent preference for risky options, except when the expected value …

Slot Machine Near Wins: Effects On Pause And Sensitivity To Win Ratios, Tadhg E. Daly, Gordon Tan, Lincoln S. Hely, Anne C. Macaskill, David N. Harper, Maree J. Hunt

Analysis of Gambling Behavior

When a near-win outcome occurs on a slot machine, stimuli presented resemble those presented when money is won, but no money is won. Research has shown that gamblers prefer and play for longer on slot machines that present near wins. One explanation for this is that near wins are conditioned reinforcers. If so, near wins would produce longer latencies to the next response than clear losses. Another explanation is that near wins produce frustration; if so, then near wins would produce shorter response latencies. The two current experiments manipulated win ratio across two concurrently available slot machines and also manipulated …

Parents And Adolescents Discuss Gambling Advertising: A Qualitative Study, Samantha L. Thomas

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The study specifically aimed to explore:

1. How socio-cultural factors may influence the meanings individuals construct about gambling.

2. How different audience segments (in this case parents and their children) interpret messages about different types of advertisements in different ways.

3. How the framing of messages about gambling may influence perceptions about the risks and benefits associated with different types of gambling products and services.

The specific objectives of the study were to:

1. Provide detailed qualitative information about how different audience segments interpret the messages they see in gambling advertisements.

2. Strengthen understandings about how different gambling advertising strategies …

Reimagining The Self-Made Man: Myth, Risk, And The Pokerization Of America, Aaron M. Duncan

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article takes a rhetorical approach to the rise of gambling in America, and in particular the growth of the game of poker, as a means to explore larger changes to America’s collective consciousness that have resulted in an increased acceptance of gambling. I contend that the rise of the risk society has resulted in significant alterations to the mythology that binds Americans together. I establish this claim through the exploration of ESPN’s coverage of the 2003 World Series of Poker and its use of the myth of the self-made man. I conclude that gambling works both to critique and …

Self-Reported Gambling Problems And Digital Traces, James Phillips, James Sargeant, Rowan Ogeil, Yang-Wai Chow, Alex Blaszczynski

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Copyright 2014, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2014. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), lists concealment as one of the symptoms of a gambling disorder. However, some transactions are more likely to leave permanent records of gambling transactions (credit, consumer loyalty schemes) than others (cash, Internet cash, Internet cafes, prepaid phones). An online survey of 815 participants recruited through newspaper and online sites elicited consumer preferences for a variety of transactions and communication media. Hierarchical multiple regression accounted for age, gender, housing status, and involvement in gambling before considering relationships between consumer preferences and scores on …

Effects Of Acute Stress And Gender On Decision-Making, Stephanie Elaine Wemm

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The current study examined the effects of a social stressor on subsequent performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), and the role of sex on this relationship. Fifty-six participants (24 men and 32 women) were assigned randomly to a social stressor (Trier Social Stress Test) or a control condition while their subjective emotional reactions and their physiological arousal (skin conductance and heart rate) were measured. Findings showed that participants in the stress condition responded with higher skin-conductance levels and heart rate during the social stressor, in addition to reporting greater negative affect directly following the social stressor. They also made …