Tolerance in gambling: an objective measure using the psychophysiological analysis of male fruit machine gamblers

Abstract

"Excitement" has often been referred to as the gambler's drug although until recently there was little evidence to substantiate such claims. This study involved the systematic monitoring of the psychophysiology of fruit machine gambling using heart rate measures in 30 adolescent male gamblers. The study was designed to test heart rate differences between regular and nonregular fruit machine gamblers (i.e., between subjects) and differences against the players' own baseline rates (i.e., within subjects). Results showed that there were no heart rate differences between regular and nonregular gamblers although during gambling, both groups' heart rates increased by approximately 22 beats per minute. It was also found that nonregular gamblers' heart rates did not decrease significantly after gambling whereas regular gamblers did. This finding could be argued as the first study to demonstrate an objective measure of gambling tolerance.