Roulette and Decision Making: To what extent does the inclusion of risk information lead to losing less when betting?

Sammanfattning: Dangerous gambling is a great cost to many individuals and to society at large. One possible solution to this problem is ensuring that consumers are better informed through displaying the probability of winning. This quantitative study explores whether the addition of risk information can lead to losing less in gambling situations, and which type of risk information participants consider to be the most helpful. Using an survey with an experimental design, participants were presented with gambling situations and their decision making was observed in order to provide data regarding to which extent different types of risk information: (1) a verbal descriptor of the chance of winning, (2) percentage probability of winning and (3) frequency probability of winning, affected decision making and winnings. The findings show that those who received risk information via percent are more likely to attain a higher final balance in the roulette game, playing more winning bets and fewer losing bets on average. Numeracy and the complexity behind decision making were also shown to have effect on final balance, meaning that they are important factors behind losing less.