Mobile gambling games offer players an innovative new way of gambling casino games on-the-go. Running on a smartphone’s CPU, these casino titles allow fast, smooth gameplay designed for maximum realism with clear and intuitive graphical user interfaces that accommodate all kinds of users. Furthermore, apps such as these store your gaming records which may come in handy if internet connectivity or battery life become an issue.
Smartphones have become an attractive platform for online gambling due to their 24/7 temporal accessibility and instant geographical availability. Unfortunately, however, little is known about how mobile gambling impacts psychological processes relevant to gambling behavior; therefore in this paper we examine how mobile smartphone use interacts with associative learning and reinforcement schedules to predict gambling outcomes.
To assess this, we employed a mobile gambling simulation app on participants’ smartphones in which they could win virtual money at fixed and random ratio schedules with multiple levels of rewards. Contextual information regarding location and other app usage was collected via self-report questionnaires; GPS coordinates were recorded each time someone gambled on any given gamble.
We were able to accurately track participants’ engagement with the app during its phases of acquisition and extinction, as well as establish latencies between gambles. The results were striking: participants demonstrated remarkable perseverance even when no longer possible to win; rewards size determined length of these bouts with larger rewards typically being associated with longer breaks and greater likelihood of ending gambling sessions sooner.
Notable findings included that near-misses (i.e., winning by only a narrow margin) were significantly predicted by previous experience with gambling as measured with the Gambling Motivation Scale and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale – suggesting these experiences are key indicators of problematic gambling behaviour and that smartphones provide an ideal way of studying these relationships.
People interested in trying their luck at mobile gambling games should visit a site offering either a free trial version or downloads, with the latter option particularly beneficial to newcomers as it allows them to practice without risking money. Users can get acquainted with the software before making their choice, and many websites feature customer support live chat for those needing extra assistance with gaming. Before signing up with any mobile gambling site for real cash gaming, players should ensure that their phone is compatible with mobile gambling games. In general, any phone manufactured within the past 3-5 years should work well, though different casinos may have specific requirements regarding certain handsets.