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Push Outcomes Bias Perceptions of Scratch Card Games

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Abstract

In the domain of scratch card gambling, “pushes” refer to outcomes in which a prize is won that is equal to the cost of a scratch card game. Despite resulting in no net monetary gain, these outcomes are categorized as wins by lottery operators, effectively inflating published scratch card information (e.g., posted odds of winning). Additionally, the experience of obtaining a push shares similarities (e.g., the revealing of matching symbols) with the experience of obtaining a win and thus may be experienced similarly to wins by gamblers. Across four studies (N = 1502), we examined the impact of push outcomes on participants’ perceptions of scratch card games. In Studies 1 and 2, participants reported feeling more likely to win, more excitement to play, and a stronger urge to gamble when presented with a scratch card that categorized push outcomes as wins compared to when presented a scratch card that did not categorize these outcomes as wins. In Study 3, participants experiencing a push outcome prior to a loss reported feeling more likely to win compared to those not experiencing a push outcome yet experiencing the same net monetary loss. In Study 4, push outcomes were found to elicit more excitement and a stronger urge to gamble compared to losses but less excitement and a weaker urge to gamble compared to wins. Overall, the present investigation suggests that push outcomes, a prevalent feature of scratch card games, can bias gambling-related judgments and increase the appeal of scratch card games.

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Data Availability

All data reported in this manuscript can be accessed via the following link: https://osf.io/q59yr/.

Notes

  1. For example, in a scratch card game available at the time of writing (“$5,000 In A Flash”; OLG, 2021b) the overall odds of winning a prize on this $10 card were 1 in 4.76 (total tickets/total number of prizes = 1,428,000/299,768 = 4.76), where the total number of “prizes” includes push outcomes which do not result in net monetary gain.

  2. The inclusion of push outcomes also impacts the payback percentages of scratch card games. For example, the inclusion of push outcomes in the scratch card mentioned above results in a payback percentage of 67.72% compared to 59.15% without pushes.

  3. However, it is worth noting that unclaimed prize information may help gamblers avoid playing scratch cards that no longer offer the possibility of a specific desired prize.

  4. Specifically, these participants responded “yes” to the question “Is there any reason that we should not use your data (e.g., did you randomly select responses at any point during the survey)?”

  5. All materials and measures used in Studies 1–4 can be viewed in the supplementary materials (parts A and B).

  6. The word “Colour” in this and all other question examples was replaced with either the word “Blue” or “Red” during Studies 1 and 2 to indicate the specific scratch card version that participants were being asked to evaluate.

  7. Further exploratory analyses detailing the zero-order correlations between certain variables of interest (i.e., CRT scores, PGSI scores, scratch card gambling frequency, win/loss category judgment) for Studies 1–4 can be viewed in the supplementary materials (part C).

  8. Note that the statistics reported here represent the results of four mixed factorial ANOVAs (one for each gambling-related judgment) with the values reported reflecting the smallest effect observed.

  9. A reviewer suggested that this finding might indicate a demand effect: After participants have seen both a Push and No Push scratch card, they infer that the experimenter expects them to respond differently to the two card types and then comply with that implied demand. We cannot fully rule out a demand-effect interpretation but note that participants’ judgments can be more responsive to variables that are manipulated within- rather than between-subjects for reasons that have nothing to do with demand effects. Hsee and colleagues (Hsee, 1996; Hsee & Zhang, 2010) have shown, for example, in an extensive line of research, that judgments are more likely to respond to variation in attributes that are low in “evaluability” when they are made in joint evaluation (when comparing two targets of judgment that differ on the attribute) than in separate evaluation (when judging a single target on its own). In Hsee’s terminology, the difference between a Push and No Push scratch card might be considered low in evaluability and, as such, most likely to have an impact in a comparative context.

  10. Participants in the Push condition were also presented with four additional mental accounting items that did not appear in the Loss condition (e.g., “I feel like I won $5 and lost $5”). These items were collected for reasons peripheral to the main focus of the manuscript and as such are not discussed further.

  11. It is worth noting that, regardless of condition, all scratch card judgments in Study 3 were made directly following a losing outcome.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Alexander C. Walker, Madison Stange, Mike J. Dixon, Jonathan A. Fugelsang & Derek J. Koehler

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  1. Alexander C. Walker
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  2. Madison Stange
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  3. Mike J. Dixon
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  4. Jonathan A. Fugelsang
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  5. Derek J. Koehler
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Correspondence to Alexander C. Walker.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Waterloo Office of Research Ethics and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Conflict of interest

MS has received travel and/or accommodation for speaking engagements from the Responsible Gambling Council (Canada) and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (Canada). She has received consulting fees from Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (Canada) and was the 2020 recipient of the Responsible Gambling Council’s Tibor I. Barsony Student Bursary (Canada). These declarations are unrelated to the research presented in this manuscript. The authors declare that they have no additional conflicts of interest.

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Walker, A.C., Stange, M., Dixon, M.J. et al. Push Outcomes Bias Perceptions of Scratch Card Games. J Gambl Stud 39, 49–73 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-022-10125-7

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