Multiline slots are popular electronic gaming machines. Research suggests that particular outcomes on these games, namely losses disguised as a wins or LDWs, may make these games particularly alluring to gamblers. LDWs occur when one wins less than they wager, but the machine celebrates these net losses with flashing lines and winning sounds (e.g., bet a dollar, win back a dime). Players are known to somatically, psychologically, and behaviourlly miscategorize LDWs as wins rather than losses. Furthermore, LDWs lead players to overestimate how many times they thought they won during a playing session – leading to what is known as the LDW-triggered win-overestimation effect. In this paper, we analyzed experienced players’ win-overestimates from 13 studies after playing slots with different LDW percentages. The combined data showed an inverted U-shaped function for win-overestimates. There appears to be a “sweet spot” for the LDW-triggered win-overestimation effect; wherein, a moderate number of LDWs maximizes this effect, but a high number of LDWs decreases the effect. In Study 2, we confirmed with 132 experienced gamblers that there appears to be maximal win overestimates at around 19.6% LDWs. We conjecture that a high number of LDWs may lead players to see a disconnection between the running total on the machine going down and the number of “wins”, leading to more accurate win estimates. This inverted “U” effect for win-overestimates parallels previous research showing that gamblers continue to play for longer during a losing streak following a playing session with a moderate (versus low or high) number of LDWs. LDW-triggered win-overestimates may contribute to the allure of multiline slots –games that cause significant problems for a subset of gamblers.

多线老虎机是流行的电子游戏机。研究表明，这些游戏的特殊结果，即伪装成胜利或LDW的损失，可能会使这些游戏特别吸引赌徒。LDW发生在赢钱少于赌注的情况下，但是机器通过闪烁的线条和赢得声音来庆祝这些净亏损（例如，下注一美元，赢回一角钱）。众所周知，玩家从身体，心理和行为上将LDW归类为赢而不是输。此外，LDW导致玩家高估了自己认为在一场游戏中获胜的次数–导致了所谓的LDW触发的获胜高估效应。在本文中，我们在玩了不同LDW百分比的老虎机后，从13个研究中分析了经验丰富的玩家的获胜率。组合数据显示了用于获胜高估的倒U型函数。LDW触发的高估效应似乎有一个“最佳点”。其中，中等数量的LDW可以最大程度地发挥这种效果，而大量LDW可以降低这种效果。在研究2中，我们与132名经验丰富的赌徒确认，似乎在19.6％的轻伤人数上获胜率最高。我们推测大量的LDW可能会导致玩家看到机器的运行总数下降与“获胜”次数之间的脱节，从而得出更准确的获胜估算。这种用于获胜的高估的倒“ U”效应与先前的研究相似，后者表明在中等（相对于低或高）LDW的游戏时段之后，赌徒在连续亏损期间继续玩更长的时间。