Animals and Gambling: Never Smile at a Gambling Crocodile

Written by:
Greg Tingle
Published on:
Nov/13/2010

 

Animals, reptiles, birds, rats, mice... you name it, have long been associated with gambling and gaming.  Be it gambling themes, game titles, academic studies comparing God's animal kingdom behaviors - humans to monkeys, sharks, rat... now even crocodiles. Media Man and Gambling911 poke a stick in the gambling jungle with this entertaining and educational report.

Australia Zoo's living legend, Terri Irwin, awoke the animal kingdom, especially crocodiles, and the bright lights of Las Vegas last year when she announced her grand plans to build a crocodile theme part on The Strip... Crocodile-A-Mania or something of that effect it will be entitled.  Some investor interest was generated via the Gambling911 and Media Man networks, however those headlines died down, but the dream remains alive.

Oh, fear not crocodile fans, PartyGaming via it's PartyCasino online casino have recently released Crocodopolis Slide-a-Wild TM.

Thanks to our friends at the Journal Of Gambling Studies we can now bring you the following:

Abstract:

Smile At A Gambling Crocodile

Tourists at the Koorana Saltwater Crocodile Farm in Coowonga, Queensland, Australia, including 62 males and 41 females, aged 18–66 (M = 34.2, SD = 13.3), were randomly assigned to play a laptop-simulated Electronic Gaming Machine (EGM) either: (1) prior to entry, or (2) after having held a 1-m saltwater-crocodile. Gambling behavior; including bet-size, speed of betting, final payouts and trials played on the EGM; was investigated with respect to participants’ assigned arousal condition, problem-gambling status, and affective state. At-risk gamblers with few self-reported negative emotions placed higher average bets at the EGM after having held the crocodile when compared to the control. In contrast, at-risk gamblers with many self-reported negative emotions placed lower average bets at the EGM after having held the crocodile. The results suggest that high arousal can intensify gambling in at-risk players, but only if this feeling state is not perceived as a negative emotion. Website http://www.springerlink.com/content/1363640732064340

Birds In Gambling

You've got to love the birds of gaming and gambling.  Network Nine Australia has 'Pluk-A-Duck', who draws lucky winners via 'Chook Lotto' on the popular television show 'Hey Hey It's Saturday' and PartyGaming has 'Birds Of Paradise', 'Unicorn Legend' and 'Golden Eagle', while Virgin Games offers 'Super Hoot Loot', sporting foxes and eagles. Party generally accepted money players from more parts of the world that Virgin at current.

Pigeons Gamble With Their Life For Bigger Wins... Or Death!...

No, its not the Betfair pink pigeons, but, the latest news we have hunted down is bound to send you animal and might just spark a feeding frenzy and will have the piranha out in full force.

Many gamblers like to risk their winnings for the opportunity of a much larger win, and now we learn pigeons like to take the same risk.

Secret research demonstrates pigeons prefer an all-or-nothing (sound like sex?) outcome rather than the guarantee of a much smaller reward.

The mysterious researchers tip this runs contrary to "optimal foraging theory", which says animals evolve to make the most rational choices possible to help guarantee their survival on gods green earth.

Instead it seems pigeons, branded pink or otherwise, behave more like human gamblers, risking everything for the small chance of a big return.

In the experiment, 8 "lucky" pigeons were taught the outcomes of two different sequences if they pecked either a vertical or a horizontal line on a screen.

They learned that if they chose the vertical line, they had a 20% of a big food reward (10 pellets) and an 80% of no reward at all (0 pellets). If they chose the horizontal line, they had a guaranteed reward of 3 pellets... which is a non-gambling option.

When the pigeons were then presented with the choice of pecking either vertical or horizontal lines, to the surprise of the researchers, most chose the vertical line despite the fact that it gave them less food overall!

Averaged over many trials, 6 of the 8 pigeons made choices that gave them an average of two food pellets over an alternative three.

"This choice behaviour mimics human monetary gambling in which the infrequent occurrence of a stimulus signalling the winning event is overemphasised and the more frequent occurrence of a stimulus signalling the losing event is underemphasised," the secret squirrel researchers write.

So, we only remember our wins, not our losses. How much are you up today?

One secret behavioural biologist says the results are interesting because they contradict accepted theory.

"Animals are supposed to make rational decisions," Dr X said.

"An animal would normally think 'what's the easiest way to answer this question?' or 'what's the fastest way to get the food'? - that's why these results are so surprising. What we're seeing here is the concept of a jackpot - you have a very positive feeling when you suddenly get a huge amount of food and you remember that very well, whereas when you lose and you didn't get what you want you discount that."

Dr X believes the pigeon's behaviour may have something to do with their lifestyle.

"Pigeons spend their time looking for seeds or trees that are blooming. These are patchy food sources where there might be a big win if you hit the right patch," she says. So it could be that they are being driven to find the big rewards where there could be a huge amount that will pay off and feed you all at one time, rather than staying on a food source where there is very little reward. It could also be that the pigeons in the experiment weren't that hungry. They knew they were always going to get back to their cage to get food. So it's possible that they didn't need this reward as much - it wasn't a life and death situation."

Either way, Dr X says it raises some interesting questions.

"Perhaps it tells us the reward system in pigeons is more similar to humans than we think," she said.

Gold Coast Con Man Bird Brain Ideas Looking To Unhatch More Scams Says Leaks...

Media Man insiders have been fielding calls advising that Gold Coast con man Con Barris is looking to unleash more bird brained ideas er schemes on the Australian public, despite getting busted earlier in the year and nesting down quietly for a few months, while he got his eggs together.

A quick refresher from last year...Gambling Con Failed To Lay Golden Eggs; Still Hiding In Nest; Dreaming Up More Eggs Lent Bird Brain Ideas... A Queensland 'Banana Bender' and semi pro scammer, who claims include having "secret method" to predict future lottery aka Power Ball draws, has been ordered to repay $10,000s of his ill gotten gains to his barn yard full of victims to his devious scheme. Surfers Paradise entrepreneur start-up Constantine 'Con' Barris had a rush of blood to the brain and hatched a hair brain type idea. He went about establishing a website, Power Ball Win (no, we're not linking to the mongrels site) and distributed 163,000 flyers primarily via junkmail to households across Australia, which claimed e "an amazing discovery that disputes the theory of random probability and has totally shocked the experts." The bad egg cunningly tricked customers forked out a $59 "subscription fee" in order to receive a series of so called predicted numbers to help win all divisions of Powerball.  Yeah right....guess what, numbers failed to produce any dividend for subscribers, but it did garner the goose some unwanted attention to himself and his nest egg. Barris appeared in the Melbourne Federal Court where Justice Richard Tracy ordered him to repay $48,163 to subscribers and flyer distributors and the legal costs of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

If you get a contact from Con please advise your local law enforcement department immediately.

Legal Eagle Words Of Wisdom To Bad Egg...

"All too often unscrupulous individuals seek to enrich themselves by devising schemes under which unsuspecting victims are induced to part with their money and other property," Justice Tracy said. Justice Tracy said there could be no 100% guarantee that a number provided by Power Ball Win would be drawn in any given game. "Nor could any other information, supplied by the company, assist anybody to choose the five remaining numbers. They (the subscribers) would have been in no better position than if they had relied on their own intuition," he said.

Wrap Up...

Punters, what might be the motto of these animal, bird and reptile stories from the road?  Gambling can be dangerous, both for humans and he animal kingdom.  Don't let cute and cuddly animal and nature themes trick you into thinking there's no risk in gambling. Only bet what you can afford to loose, and play for enjoyment (unless you a poker pro), and poker is more a game of skill than chance according to many legal eagles across the global, so poker doesn't really count.  Don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Try various games and see what your good at, or if you please, see what you seem to be more "lucky at".  More importantly, keep it fun, and if you think you might be a dangerous to yourself or others, bring a friend you can trust, or don't gamble at all.  Most online casinos offers a variety of animal and nature themes and the good news is that many games can be played for free or played for money.

*Greg Tingle is a special contributor for Gambling911

*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company

*No birds, animals or reptiles were harmed in the putting together of this report

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