Erroneous beliefs among frequent fruit-machine gamblers

The present studies investigated the extent to which fruit-machine gamblers held erroneous beliefs, specifically the illusion of control and gambler’s fallacy. In Study 1, 9 participants were interviewed and their audiotaped responses submitted to a thematic analysis, which suggested that the 4 frequent gamblers were more likely to express beliefs and statements consistent with the cognitive biases of illusion of control and the gambler’s fallacy than the 5 infrequent gamblers. This observation was confirmed in the second study when the Gamblers’ Beliefs Questionnaire (GBQ) was completed by 37 participants (10 frequent gamblers, 11 infrequent gamblers and 16 non-gamblers). Frequent fruit machine gamblers were more inclined than infrequent fruit machine gamblers to express beliefs consistent with the cognitive biases, the illusion of control and the gambler’s fallacy.