Introduction
Gambling is characterized as an activity whose outcome is based mainly or totally on chance, which involves an irreversible provision of money or an object of value beforehand. Different gambling types include games of luck (lottery, slot machines, scratch-cards and roulette) and games of skill (poker, blackjack, sports and horse betting). The outcome of games of luck is due only to chance, while games of skill depend on luck, strategy, experience and knowledge parameters. To date, few epidemiological data are available on European populations, which can be explained by the lack of research on the prevalence of gamblers in the general population. Different sets of practices can be identified depending on the intensity of gambling, defined by its frequency or the amount spent on games. In France and Northern Europe, 1–2% of problem or pathological gambling occurs in the general population. A similar prevalence was found in Canada and New Zealand (Costes et al.
2011). However, these estimations are much lower than those found in the United States and Australia (around 5%). Differences in terms of prevalence between countries are still widely discussed. Accessibility to gambling and the materials used to obtain these data are some explanations regularly put forward.
Among types of gambling, poker playing appears to have special features, particularly the involvement of both chance and strategy in the game’s outcome (Barrault et al.
2014), which could influence players’ perception of chance in the game (Barrault and Varescon
2013). Furthermore, poker players show specific gambling problems (Bjerg
2010; Barrault et al.
2014). Evidence from the literature thus suggests that excessive poker players may have a specific psychological profile.
While the practice of gambling can be seen as a personal choice, it can be influenced by factors favoring it or not (Burlacu et al.
2013). Cognitive distortions are one of the variables that influence involvement in gambling activity. Inherent to gambling situations, all gamblers, including non-problem gamblers and gamblers who have good numerical and objective probabilities of winning, are susceptible to developing cognitive distortions. These are therefore not related to a lack of knowledge or information regarding the game (Lambos and Delfabbro
2007). According to Sévigny and Ladouceur (
2003), pathological gamblers will experience two cognitive states: one focused on taking into account rational and objective probabilities, and another primarily focused on the activity and the expected results. Thus, even individuals with a good knowledge of probabilities and principles could present cognitive distortions that would be activated in gambling situations (Barrault and Varescon
2013). These irrational beliefs coexist with and oppose the rational beliefs of the gamblers. This cognitive change can be explained by the concept of heuristic control. In fact, in a particular class of situations, such as gambling, individuals are more likely to overestimate the amount of their perceived control over results; particularly when they are strongly committed to the task and/or they have a strong desire for results (Clark
2014; Delfabbro et al.
2006).
The presence of such cognitive distortions in gamblers is widely documented in the literature (Clark
2014). Hence, a model representing the five major beliefs related to gambling may be clinically significant (Raylu and Oei
2004).
Gambling-
related expectancies is more about the perception of the expected impact on the game itself than the hope of happiness, pleasure, or other types of emotions with personal utility that can be derived from the game.
Illusion of control corresponds to the perceived controllability over the results of a game, while
predictive control is the perception of predicting the outcome of the game. The belief about the
inability to stop gambling refers to the perception of being unable to resist an urge to gamble. Finally,
interpretative bias is characterized by an attributional belief, that is to say promoting the successful continuation of gambling and allocating losses to external factors.
Furthermore, cognitive distortions increase with the severity of gambling: problem gamblers seem to have more than non-problem gamblers (Miller and Currie
2008). They tend to overestimate the role of skill in games and consider gambling a financially profitable activity. However, the desire to win money causes losses that can be fueled by cognitive distortions. Delfabbro et al. (
2006) implicitly suggested that gambling motives could influence cognitive distortions, particularly the illusion of control.
Although motivations vary according to the type of population studied (age and gender) (Dowling
2013; Sundqvist et al.
2016), the type of game, although this is not studied here (Binde
2013; Lee et al.
2007), and the severity of gambling (Francis et al.
2014), some of them are found fairly consistently in the literature. The motivational factor most often raised is financial gain, but others have also been highlighted: for fun or amusement, against boredom (Lam
2007; Neighbors et al.
2002), to escape from routine (Loroz
2004), to socialize, for excitement (Lee et al.
2007), for the challenge (Chantal et al.
1994), to escape from stress (Lee et al.
2007) or to escape depressive affects (Stewart and Zack
2008). These motives seem to reflect the expectations of gamblers about, on the one hand, the positive aspects of the reward of gambling behavior and, on the other hand, its potential to reduce negative affects.
Several models have been proposed to explain what motivates and animates gamblers; those of Binde (
2013) and Milosevic and Ledgerwood (
2010), who identified enhancement, coping and social motivation. Enhancement motivation refers to the presence of sensation-seeking, impulsiveness, a sense of excitement felt for the game and coping. Gamblers wishing to regulate their emotional states would have a high level of this motivation whereas gamblers with a high level of coping would be characterized by a set of inappropriately used behaviors to escape their negative emotional state (Bonnaire et al.
2009; Vachon and Bagby
2009). Lastly, gamblers with a high level of social motivation play to establish a social affiliation (for fun with friends, for example) and would not present psychopathological disorders. Added to this is the financial motivation, already mentioned, which cannot be dissociated from this type of gambling (Dechant
2013).
To date, much empirical research has been carried out on cognitive distortions. However, no study has focused specifically on the link between these variables and gambling motives. Thus, our objectives were to assess gambling practice, gambling motives and cognitive distortions in terms of their presence and nature in gamblers, to compare them between the different types of gamblers, to determine the link between motivations and cognitions, and also to explain the nature of the relationship between gambling motivations and cognitive distortions. In view of these objectives, it was hypothesized that (1) problem gamblers would show a higher level of gambling motives and a higher level of cognitive distortions than non-problem gamblers; (2) there would be strong correlations between these two variables and with gambling severity; and (3) gambling motives would be a strong predictor of cognitive distortions.
Discussion
This research is the first to assess gambling motives and cognitive distortions jointly in poke players. One of the purposes of this study was to investigate whether gambling motives explain cognitive distortions.
The main results show that gambling motives are a strong predictor of cognitive distortions. This close linkage enables us to hypothesize that gamblers with more motives to gamble (both in quality and in quantity) are more likely to develop and maintain cognitive distortions during gambling, such as the failure to appreciate the independence of turns (GRCS predictive control) and expectancies that gambling will be exciting and/or relieve negative affect (GRCS gambling related-expectancies) for example. Cognitive distortions are mainly explained by financial and coping motivation. Greed and the tendency to escape from daily difficulties may explain the presence of more or fewer cognitive distortions. Indeed, the desire to succeed and win money may be overestimated by gamblers while creating financial losses. Moreover, winning money probably enables some gamblers to escape their routine and their difficulties, which may reinforce cognitive distortions. In addition, the game’s outcome modulates the gambler’s mood: more depressive affects are observed after a loss, and more euphoria after a win.
The link between gambling motives and gambling severity has already been studied in the literature (Francis et al.
2014). Our results confirm these results and show that gambling motives are significantly correlated to the degree of gambling severity. Moreover, the differences between the three groups of gamblers (NPGs, RPGs and PPGs) are statistically significant for all dimensions of the GMQ-F scale, except for “social” motivation. Earlier research showed that PPGs gamble more to escape problems compared to recreational gamblers (Burlacu et al.
2013; Clarke
2008; Platz and Millar
2001), which is supported in this study. Respondents with a gambling problem have significantly higher scores than RPGs and NPGs: first, on coping, secondly, on financial motivation and then on enhancement. The content of the coping subscale might mediate the negative affects found in pathological gamblers (Connor-Smith and Flachsbart
2007). Furthermore, our study highlights the nature of the relationship between these two variables: gambling motives explain 22.0% of problem gambling. Individual differences, particularly in terms of motives, may be a vulnerability factor of problem gambling behavior.
Multivariate analyses reveal that gambling severity associated with gambling motives accounts for 39.7% of cognitive distortions, with the enhancement motive negatively related to cognitive distortions. We can hypothesize that the acquisition of a set of knowledge and know-how, in order to progress, opposes the potential installation of cognitive distortions. For example, gamblers motivated by improvement are well informed about the game (probabilities, gambling techniques, etc.). Nevertheless, our sample is mainly composed of male gamblers, who are more oriented towards, on the one hand, games of skill (poker and sports betting), and on the other hand, enhancement (Gandolfo and Debonis
2014). The enhancement motives may reflect a desire to increase self-esteem. However, changes in self-perception are directly linked to major trends in success and failure, also related to the acquired skills.
Nevertheless, the literature also reports the link between the severity of gambling and cognitive distortions, putting forward cognitive distortions as a risk factor and not the other way round (Barrault and Varescon
2013; Cunningham et al.
2014; Navas et al.
2016; Romo et al.
2016). In our study, all GRCS measures were higher in the PG group than in the other two groups (NPGs and RPGs). The inability to stop gambling appears as the main reported cognitive distortion. However, this cognitive distortion component is one of the criteria characterizing pathological gambling. This result highlights a certain awareness in problem gamblers of their difficulties in controlling their gambling behavior. Unlike the results found previously, in pathological gamblers (Michalczuk et al.
2011; Navas et al.
2016) and pathological gambling poker players (Barrault and Varescon
2013), the illusion of control does not appear to be an important belief. However, it is possible that gamblers subjectively experience the illusion of control, without it concretely impacting their way of gambling. Gamblers could also have underestimated their answers as they were not in gambling conditions when filling out the questionnaires. This is consistent with the results found by Dannewitz and Weatherly (
2007). Moreover, several factors may influence cognitive distortions, including the degree of involvement of the gambler and some features of the game (Ladouceur and Sévigny
2005). The literature highlights, on one hand, a quantitative difference in cognitive distortions depending on game frequency and intensity (the level of irrational beliefs increases with the intensity of gambling practice) and on the other hand, a qualitative difference (the role of skill in games and the perception of the game as financially profitable are more present in pathological gamblers) (Delfabbro et al.
2006; Källmen et al.
2008; Miller and Currie
2008; Moodie
2008; Raylu and Oei
2004). Different groupings of preferred gambling type, such as games of skill and games of luck, could be another way to examine cognitive distortions.
To our knowledge, few studies have focused on gambling motives. This is why our study aimed to provide some additional information by identifying and comparing gambling motivations based on gambling practices. However, there are several limitations to the interpretation and generalization of the results. First, participants are only male poker gamblers, who are not representative of the gambler population due to their specific profile. In order to limit this bias, studies need to be carried out on groups of gamblers created according to the type of game practiced. Moreover, we cannot generalize the results to women gamblers while a gender effect has been demonstrated in some previous studies. In fact, in both pathological and non-pathological gamblers, women appear to have less intense cognitive distortions than men (Dannewitz and Weatherly
2007; Moodie
2008; Raylu and Oei
2004). Nevertheless, we tried to constitute a sample as representative as possible by recruiting our participants in ecological settings (Internet forums). Secondly, we used the SOGS (Lesieur and Blume
1987) to screen for gambling problems: in our sample, we observed 14.3% of probable pathological gamblers, which is similar to the results found by Barrault and Varescon (
2013) using the SOGS, and by Wood et al. (
2007) using the DMS-IV-TR criteria (APA
2003). Although the SOGS is known to foster false positives in a general population (Stinchfield
2002), it is still the most used screening tool in research. Another limitation of this study is the cross-sectional design. Indeed, it seems to make changes in motivations and/or in involvement over time and in terms of gambling practice. A longitudinal or qualitative study would allow access to these evolutionary elements. Moreover, for practical reasons, our results are based on the prevalence during the current period (the last year). Finally, we were unable to compare online and live gamblers because the majority of our participants reported having both types of practices. Another approach could be to compare, as far as possible in terms of feasibility, exclusive online gamblers and live gamblers. Despite these limitations, the present study offers interesting results and research perspectives. The relationship between gambling problems in all gamblers, gambling motives and cognitive distortions merits further study.
Conclusions and Implications
In conclusion, gambling motives differ between gamblers depending on the intensity and severity of the gambling practice. The level of risky gambling is associated with motivations and should be considered during tests or assessment. Moreover, the presence of cognitive distortions is impacted by the presence of gambling motives. A longitudinal study would show the evolution of motivations and cognitive distortions (in terms of numbers and importance) in gamblers engaging in regular gambling activity.
The differences in psychological functioning between non-problem gamblers, at risk-gamblers and those with a probable problem demonstrate the need for further research to understand better the factors involved in gambler behavior, with the objective of prevention and care for gamblers. With these results, we can hypothesize that a systematic assessment of gambling motives of gamblers would enable us to target the type of intervention required. Moreover, due to the possible presence of varying levels of cognitive distortions, a motivational and cognitive intervention (such as cognitive remediation) would act on the two components of gambling, directly linked to gambling problems.