Abstract
Four hundred and eighty-five people were asked about their intentions to play the National Lottery in England a week prior to the introduction of a new midweek draw. We predicted that those people who played the Saturday game with a regular set of numbers would be more inclined to play the new midweek game than those who had not established a routine of using the same set of numbers. We further predicted that their motivation to play would derive from a feeling of 'anticipatory regret' - a sense that they would find it intolerable to discover their regular numbers had been drawn when they hadn't purchased a ticket. Results supported both of these predictions, and an interpretation of the data is given in terms of the circumstances most likely to trigger such counterfactual reasoning.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-17 |
Journal | Journal of Gambling Studies |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Mar 2002 |
Keywords
- Anticipatory regret
- Counterfactual thinking
- Gambling
- Lottery