Behavioral analysis of habit formation in modern slot machine gambling

ABSTRACT

Habit formation is a key process in contemporary models of addictive behaviors but has received limited attention in the context of gambling and problem gambling. Methods for examining habit formation and expression in relation to gambling are also lacking. In this study, 60 participants with no prior slot machine experience attended three sessions spaced 6–8 days apart, during which they played a short 200-spin session on a realistic simulation of a modern multi-line slot machine. Behavioral data were analyzed to characterize habit formation within and between sessions. Fixed-effects regressions, integrating trial- and session-level effects, assessed predictors of gambling speed (spin initiation latencies) and betting rigidity (the likelihood of switching the bet amount), as two putative markers of habit formation. Participants gambled faster and showed less variability in betting strategy as they accumulated experience in the number of trials and sessions gambled. Simultaneously, as the number of sessions gambled increased, participants showed a more pronounced tendency to slow their betting after larger wins (i.e. the post-reinforcement pause increased from session 1 to session 3). Our methods provide a basis for future research to examine habits in the context of slot machine gambling.

KEYWORDS:

• Habit
• gambling
• slot machine
• pathways model
• post-reinforcement pause

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Rahul Singh and Zoha Janjua for their contributions to data collection, and Bapi Vinnakota for providing consultation on programming the slot machine task. The slot machine equipment used in the present study was loaned to the Centre by the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC), and we thank BCLC for their support with regard to occasional maintenance of these machines.

Funding sources

This study was funded by a Discovery Award to LC from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN–2017–04069), and the core funding of the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC, which is supported by the Province of British Columbia government and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC; a Canadian Crown Corporation).

Constraints on publishing

The authors declare no constraints on publishing.

Competing interests:

MF is supported by doctoral fellowship funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). He has received a speaker honorarium from the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC). MF has not received any further direct or indirect payments from the gambling industry or groups substantially funded by gambling. EHLO holds a postdoctoral appointment at the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC which is supported by funding from the Province of British Columbia and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC), a Canadian Crown Corporation. She has received a speaker honorarium from the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling (U.S.A.) and accepted travel/accommodation for speaking engagements from the National Council for Responsible Gambling (U.S.A.), the International Multidisciplinary Symposium on Gambling Addiction (Switzerland) and the Responsible Gambling Council (Canada). She has not received any further direct or indirect payments from the gambling industry or groups substantially funded by gambling. LC is the Director of the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC, which is supported by funding from the Province of British Columbia and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC), a Canadian Crown Corporation. LC is a regional assistant editor for International Gambling Studies but was blinded to the review and editorial process for this manuscript. LC has received a speaker/travel honorarium from the National Association for Gambling Studies (Australia) and the National Center for Responsible Gaming (US), and has received fees for academic services from the National Center for Responsible Gaming (US), GambleAware (UK) and Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (Canada). He has not received any further direct or indirect payments from the gambling industry or groups substantially funded by gambling. He has received royalties from Cambridge Cognition Ltd. relating to neurocognitive testing.

Preregistration statement

No preregistration was declared by the authors in relation to this manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data and analysis scripts that support the findings of this study are openly available in the UBC Dataverse Collection at https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/KWJTFU.

Ethical approval

The University of British Columbia Behavioural Research Ethics Board.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14459795.2022.2088822

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mario A. Ferrari

Mario A. Ferrari is a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He has an MA in Psychology from UBC. His doctoral research focuses on developing methods for and identifying behavioral expressions of habit formation in gambling.

Eve H. Limbrick-Oldfield

Eve H. Limbrick-Oldfield is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. She completed her PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Imperial College London. Her research focuses on the neural and cognitive basis of gambling-related cognitive distortions in healthy participants and individuals with gambling problems.

Luke Clark

Luke Clark is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and Director of the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC. He is an experimental psychologist by training. His research focuses on the psychological and neural basis of decision-making in gambling and its relevance to the development of gambling harms.