Superstitious gamblers

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 <>