Gambling Superstitions: No dogs
near the gambling table and keep your horny toad close
Superstitions are so common that even the most
diehard realists sometimes fall prey to believing
them. It is well known that famous athletes have their
beliefs: Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to six
NBA Championships wearing his "lucky"
college gym shorts underneath his uniform. Golfer
Tiger Woods supposedly believes that the color red is
lucky for him (Superstitions run rampant, 2004).
Gambling, in particular, has long been associated with
all kinds of superstitions, for example: (1) A throw
of two ones in dice is called Snake Eyes, a reference
to the devil who presented himself to Eve in that
form; (2) always blow on your cards or dice for luck;
(3) never keep dogs near a gambling table; and (4)
keep a horny toad toenail for luck (Dossey, 1992).
But how does being superstitious affect individuals'
tendencies toward problem gambling? A new study from
Joukhador, Blaszczynzki, & Maccallum (2004)
provides evidence of a link between superstitious
beliefs and gambling problems. Joukhador et al.
recruited 56 (20 female) problem Electronic Gaming
Machine (EGM) gamblers from both a
university-affiliated treatment clinic and a community
gambling counseling agency. A control group of 74
nonproblem gamblers were recruited from colleagues and
acquaintances of the study researchers.
The researchers required participants of the problem
gambling subject pool to have a South Oaks Gambling (SOGS)
score of at least 10 (mean SOGS score = 12.9). In
addition to the SOGS, all subjects completed a brief
interview to obtain demographic information and gather
other dependent measures: number of gambling sessions
per week, amount brought to each gambling session,
level of debt, years of problems with gambling, money
lost each week, time spent at each gambling session,
and an eight-item superstition test, which is shown in
Table 1.
Subjects rated, on a five-point scale ranging from
zero (not at all) to four (very much), the strength of
their beliefs in the eight listed items.
Table 1. Eight-item superstition test (Joukhador et
al., 2004)
Significant differences were found between problem and
non-problem gamblers on several demographic variables
as well as in the endorsement of superstitious
beliefs. Problem gamblers reported significantly
greater (1) number of gambling sessions per week, (2)
amount of money taken to gambling sessions, (3)
current debt, (4) years of problem gambling, (5)
weekly losses, and (6) time spent at gambling
sessions.
Mann-Whitney U-tests revealed that problem EGM
gamblers endorsed significantly more superstitious
beliefs (M = 9.6, SD = 6.7) as compared to non-problem
gamblers (M = 2.2, SD = 3.4;), respectively (Z= -5.8,
p < 0.05). No significant differences in
superstitious beliefs were found between males and
females. Table 2 shows how superstitious beliefs
correlated with each gambling behavior variable.
As Table 2 demonstrates, people who endorsed
superstitious beliefs spent more time and more money
gambling than those who did not endorse as many
superstitious beliefs.
Table 2. Correlations (Kendal tau-b method) between
gambling behavior variables and superstition ratings.
A limitation of this study is that the researchers did
not define "superstition" for the
interviewed subjects. Perceptions of a concept such as
"superstition" might differ greatly from
subject to subject. It is not clear that these eight
items measure one underlying construct
"superstition."
Another limitation involves the choice of subjects.
Problem gamblers recruited from clinics and counseling
agencies are generally treatment seekers and might not
be representative of average problem gamblers.
Likewise, the controls in this study, colleagues and
friends of the researchers, might not be
representative of average non-problem gamblers. These
subjects may have greater knowledge of the study's
methods than the average nonaffiliated person.
Overall, this study provides evidence that problem
gamblers more consistently endorse superstitious
beliefs than a group of non-problem gamblers.
WAGER 8(43) suggested a connection between heightened
superstitious beliefs and gambling-related problems.
This study seems to confirm the hypothesis that there
is a connection between heightened superstitious
beliefs and gambling-related problems. Also provokes
questions about how superstitious beliefs and
gambling-related problems are connected.
Perhaps superstitious beliefs precede excessive
gambling or perhaps excessive gambling precedes
superstitious beliefs. Future prospective studies are
needed to shed light on this issue.
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