• A new study looks into how extended wakefulness may impact the intensity of a gambling activity
• Researchers argue that there is only a nominal impact on the intensity of gambling after extended periods without sleep, but there are caveats
• The recent study was designed in a way that better emulates real-world conditions that regular gamblers face

A new study into the effects of extended wakefulness has sought to improve on previous literature and experiments as to whether the longer people stay awake, the more intense their gambling becomes.

Extended wakefulness and the role and impact it has on gambling intensity

Previous experiments have stipulated as much, arguing that the longer an individual stayed up without sleep, the more intense their gambling became, in the sense that there was more money placed quicker.

However, Thorne, H.B., Rockloff, M., Vincent, G.E.et al.have set out to offer a different view on this claim in their study, "Laboratory-induced extended wakefulness impairs mood and vigilance but not gambling behaviour in regular gamblers," in which they have changed some of the experimental parameters to create more realistic conditions of extended wakefulness and how it may impact gambling behavior.

Specifically, the researchers observed the subject’s gambling habit after 18.75 hours of wakefulness. Individuals were tracked in a controlled environment and given gambling tasks to solve at 6:00 pm and then at 3:00 am, with the researchers concluding that there were no changes in the frequency or intensity of gambling, at least not significantly.

The study involved 9 male and 10 female participants looking for differences in behavior across genders, but the research did not stipulate that there were any activities based on the sex of the subjects.

Why does this take on extended wakefulness matter?

The new research is important for several reasons. First, it emulates the extended wakefulness that real gamblers face. Previous studies that found a correlation between the intensity of gambling and wakefulness had mostly subjected their subject to prolonged spells without sleep, usually anything between 24 to 72 hours.

However, the new research cautioned that it used specifically-designed games to measure intensity and participation during periods of extended wakefulness, and that those were not in fact representative of real-world casino games in full.

It’s still worth noting that this study only focused on people’s behavior after only one extended period of no sleep, as opposed to monitoring people who have had several such periods and gauging their response to gambling, vis-à-vis intensity.

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