Gamblers or Investors? An Experiment on the Almost-Winning Outcome

Near-miss outcomes are real-life situations which increase the perceived probability of the occurrence of future successes. The Almost-Winning (AW) bias is the well-known cognitive bias that makes individuals unable to distinguish between situations in which near misses signal ability and situations in which near misses are completely meaningless, in the sense of being unrelated to future (likelihood of) winning. The empirical and neurological evidence shows that a near-miss increases gamblers’ willingness to play: AW triggers a dopamine response similar to winning, in spite of no actual reward. Therefore, in a chance game, a sequence of AW outcomes easily generates an “irrational” willingness to continue playing, and might become a key factor in the development and maintenance of certain betting habits. We implement an experimental setting aimed at checking the relevance of the AW bias among ordinary students on order to evaluate its potential strength in absence of gambling pathologies. Two treatments are implemented in two different frames, an investment game (IG) and a slot machine game (SM), which try to avoid persistence at gaming.