The attraction of gambling

Abstract

If a repeated gamble is subjectively structured into units each consisting of a string of consecutive losses followed by a single win, longer strings will necessarily be less valuable. Longer, less valuable strings will be discounted by delay more than will shorter, more valuable strings. This implies that the whole gamble's expected, delay-discounted value will increase as delay discounting increases. With this restructuring, even games of (objectively) negative expected value, such as those at casinos, may be subjectively positive. The steeper the delay discounting, the greater the subjective value of the gamble (over normal ranges of discounting steepness). Frequent gamblers, who value gambles highly, would thus be expected to discount delayed rewards more steeply than would nongamblers.

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