Gamblers have a poor ability to adapt to risky situations
- Gamblers are prone to making risky choices as a result of impaired brain activity
- But scientists have also found they have difficulty in adapting to risky situations
- The findings may explain why those who enjoy a flutter keep upping their stakes
Stephen Matthews For Mailonline
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Gambling addicts have a poor ability to adapt to high risk situations, new research shows.
The findings may explain why those who enjoy a flutter at the casino keep upping their stakes – even if they are heavily down.
Gamblers are widely known to be prone to making risky choices as a result of impaired activity in their brain.
Using scans of their brain activity, Japanese researchers confirmed they also have difficulty in cognitive flexibility – the ability to switch behaviours.
The new findings may explain why those who enjoy a flutter at the casino keep upping their stakes – even if they are heavily down
Adults are supposedly meant to make decisions by evaluating the likelihood of success based on the level of tolerable risk.
Adjustments are then made based on other circumstances, according to the study published in Translational Psychiatry.
Lead researcher Dr Hidehiko Takahashi, of Kyoto University, likened this to that a football match.
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If you are losing in the first half, you will likely prefer a strong defence while pushing your attackers forward, he said.
However, if you are still losing towards the end of the second half, ‘you may choose to forgo defence in favour of an all-out attack’.
Addicts, on the other hand, are inclined towards unnecessarily risky decisions, showing a defect in risk assessment.
Gamblers are widely known to be prone to making risky choices as a result of impaired activity in their brain (stock)
Dr Takahashi said: ‘We observed diminished activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved in cognitive flexibility.
GAMBLERS BRAIN ACTIVITY RESEMBLES DRUG ADDICTS
Compulsive gamblers seek games of chance because of the same brain circuits that drive drug addiction, research in January showed.
British scientists identified two brain areas that were highly active when gamblers felt the urge to make a bet or spin the wheel.
Both regions, known as the insula and nucleus accumbens, are involved in decision-making, reward sensations and impulse control, and have previously been linked to alcohol and drug cravings.
‘This indicates that these subjects lack an ability to adapt their behavior to the risk level of the situation.’
Flexibility in risk-taking between addicts and non-addicts was determined through a series of gambling tasks.
Participants were required to earn a certain amount of credits.
Addicts were found to go with a risky strategy even if that choice was sub-optimal.
The team hopes that their findings will contribute to a better understanding of the nature of gambling addiction.
This comes after researchers found in February that gamblers who feel like they enter a ‘trance’ while playing slot machines are more likely to be addicted.
University of British Columbia researchers called this the ‘slot machine zone’ hypothesis – the idea problem gamblers prefer slot machines because they’re fast and allow continuous play.
This makes the players enter an immersed state where they can escape from feelings of stress, boredom or a low mood.
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