Investigating Illusion of Control In Experienced and Non-Experienced Gamblers: Replication and Extension

The illusion of control is a phenomenon in which one erroneously believes he or she can exert control over the contingencies of chance events. To date, many of the studies investigating this phenomenon as it applies to gambling have used artificial gambling contexts and participants with no history of gambling beha-vior (i.e., undergraduates). This study replicated the procedures outlined in Di-xon, Hayes and Ebbs (1998) using experienced and inexperienced gamblers in a more natural gambling setting. Participants played 20 rounds of a game of rou-lette in which the default procedure was for the dealer to choose the bets. How-ever, players could choose their own bets by paying extra chips. Results indi-cated that most participants did not buy control of chip placement, indicating an absence of illusion of control. However, the two participants with the highest scores on the South Oaks Gambling Screen engaged in behaviors consistent with illusion of control across almost every trial