Player’s tendency for risk seeking and risk averse behaviours in gambling

Abstract

This study (N = 106; 62 women, 44 men) examines the role of regulatory focus orientation and bet size in the domain of gamblers’ risk tendencies. Previous literature suggested that regulatory focus orientation and money amount involved in the investment greatly influenced humans’ risk tendency. As gambling is contractually different from investment, the effects of these factors in the gambling field are investigated in this study. The results suggested that highly prevention-focused participants tended to be more risk seeking when they won in the first gamble. However, the level of promotion focus orientation did not make a significant impact on gamblers’ risk tendencies. Besides, the significant effect of bet size in gambling is detected. It was regarded as the demonstration of the peanuts effect. After all, comments on methodology were made. Several improvements for the regulatory focus strength measure were addressed. Future research directions of investigating factors that potentially affect the risk tendency were also suggested.