I am 34 years old female a phD student, a researcher and having problems with pokie machines. It just go to show anyone is susceptible, female or male, irregardless of your occupation, your financial status and intelligence...If even rats are susceptible, so can you!
Sometimes I read widely, and anything that interests me.
In an attempt to understand my compulsive gambling behaviour, I came across a journal articles titled "A Selective Role for Dopamine D4 Receptors in Modulating Reward Expectancy in a Rodent Slot Machine Task." Wow, they had even designed a slot machine for the rats!
"Methods: In the 16-month study, a cohort of 32 laboratory rats responded to a series of three flashing lights before choosing between two levers. One combination of lights (all lights illuminated) signaled a win and seven combinations (zero, one or two lights) signaled a loss. A “cash-out” lever rewarded the rat with 10 sugar pellets on winning trials, but gave a 10-second “time out” penalty on losing trails. The “roll again” lever allowed the rats to begin a new trial without penalty, but provided no sugar pellets.
Interestingly, the rats showed a tendency towards choosing the cash-out lever when two lights (near-miss) illuminated, suggesting that rats, like people, are susceptible to the near-miss effect."
Which one of you, like me, are susceptible to this near miss effect? I hadn't given too much thought about the near-miss effect until I read this article. The sounds the coins of the "Five dragon" pokie machine makes when they landed on the reel and the lanterns on the Lucky 88?
It makes sense now, I was always rooting for the "free game" features and get very very excited whenever two of the scatters landed on the reel to almost hit the feature. I could feel my heart beating fast or almost skipped a beat!
And many times the reason why I won't leave even when I was winning or loosing is because "something tells me, a free game feature is near..." "I will stay until I hit the next free game feature!"
All the visual and audio ques the pokie machine makes, is ingrained in the brain, like a form of hypnosis. Hitting the feature or almost hitting the feature must have create something in my brain that makes me feel good and wanting more. I started to call this "dopamine memory" or the "feel good memory" after I read about the effects of what dopamine and serotonin do to you. I will write on this topic sometime later.
So, the next time you're stuck at the venue again and rooting for a "free game feature" and seeing 1 symbol away from hitting the feature, think twice again...
It's not you, it's the nature of the design of these pokies machines, they create something in your brain to make you crave more and more of those "feel good feelings"
And when you're loosing, you want these "feel good feelings" even more and ended up chasing loses and the cycle continues...
Some people are lucky to walk away, some not so lucky and have susceptible mind like mine, must learn a way to re-program our mind to cope with situations like this, learning other techniques to make ourselves feel good when we needed instead of hitting the machines straight away.
Till next time I write again. All the best.
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