Online sports betting is giving researchers an unusually detailed view of how people respond to financial losses—and West Virginia University scientists believe that data could reveal the precise moments when gambling shifts from entertainment to dangerous behavior.
Researchers at WVU’s John Chambers College of Business and Economics are studying “loss-chasing,” the tendency to place additional wagers after losing money in an attempt to recover it. The behavior is a central feature of problem gambling because it can transform a single disappointing bet into a rapidly escalating cycle of risk. With a nearly $300,000 grant from Arnold Ventures, the team will analyze real-time information supplied by West Virginia gaming operators to identify the betting patterns and events that trigger this escalation.
“Some people are placing hundreds of bets on sporting events in just one month through online gaming operators,” said Brad Humphreys, a Chambers College economics professor and director of the Center for Gaming Research and Development. “West Virginians who gamble irresponsibly need help. Our research is going to make it easier to get those people help.”
The project is possible because West Virginia lawmakers enacted the Responsible Gaming Research and Industry Development Act two years ago. The law requires online gaming operators to share timely data with WVU, creating a rare research environment in which scientists can examine gambling behavior as it unfolds rather than relying only on surveys or retrospective interviews. The information can show when wagers are placed, how frequently they occur, what types of bets are selected and how betting changes after a loss.
That level of resolution matters because loss-chasing may be driven by specific psychological and statistical triggers. One possibility Humphreys and his colleagues will examine is the “near-miss” parlay: a wager in which most predictions are correct but one outcome fails. A bettor may experience such a result as evidence that success was close, even though the wager still produces a complete loss. Researchers will investigate whether these near misses are followed by larger bets, more frequent wagers or riskier combinations of outcomes.
Parlay bets are especially important in West Virginia, where nearly 90% of sports wagers are parlays. These bets combine two or more predictions, known as legs, into one package. Every leg must be correct for the bettor to receive a payout. A three-leg parlay requiring three NFL teams to win, for example, pays nothing if even one team loses. The structure can produce large advertised payouts, but the probability of winning decreases as more conditions are added, making the wager particularly vulnerable to misunderstanding and emotional reactions.
From an economic perspective, most sports bets and internet casino games have a negative expected value. Expected value is the long-run average amount a bettor can anticipate winning or losing per wager after accounting for all possible outcomes and their probabilities. Even when a bet produces a short-term win, the odds are generally designed so that the operator retains a mathematical advantage over many wagers. Chasing losses does not reverse that disadvantage; instead, it exposes the bettor to additional opportunities for the negative expected value to accumulate.
The study will also consider iGaming, a broad category that includes internet-based casino games such as slots and poker. West Virginia is one of only seven states where iGaming is legal, and Humphreys said the amount of money wagered through these platforms is an order of magnitude larger than the amount wagered on sports. The speed and continuous availability of online casino games may create different behavioral risks from sports betting, where wagers are often tied to scheduled events. Comparing the two markets could help researchers determine whether particular forms of rapid, repeated betting are more strongly associated with loss-chasing.
By comparing betting activity before and after a triggering loss, the WVU team hopes to measure how risk changes in response to specific outcomes. Researchers can examine whether bettors increase the size of their wagers, switch to higher-variance bets, place bets more quickly or continue wagering for longer periods. These patterns may help distinguish ordinary recreational behavior from episodes of elevated risk. The analysis cannot determine a person’s thoughts directly, but large-scale behavioral data can reveal consistent relationships between events and subsequent decisions.
The ultimate goal is to translate those findings into practical consumer protections. If a near-miss parlay or another type of loss reliably precedes dangerous betting, operators could potentially identify the pattern in real time and introduce safeguards, such as temporary account pauses, responsible-gaming messages or limits on further wagers. Such interventions would not eliminate individual choice, but they could create a brief barrier during a period when emotional decision-making may override careful financial judgment. Humphreys has studied gambling for more than two decades and has advised lawmakers, lottery commissioners and gambling regulators in several states. He said the project could help WVU become an international leader in evidence-based gaming research. Arnold Ventures, which funds work intended to inform policy through rigorous evidence, awarded the grant through the WVU Foundation. University leaders say the research will provide policymakers, public-health professionals and industry stakeholders with data needed to make more informed decisions as online gambling expands across the United States.
Subject of Research: Loss-chasing behavior, risky sports betting, online gambling, parlay wagers and responsible-gaming interventions in West Virginia.
Article Title: Real-Time Betting Data Could Reveal When Gamblers Begin Chasing Losses
Web References: West Virginia University: https://www.wvu.edu/; WVU John Chambers College of Business and Economics: https://business.wvu.edu/; WVU Center for Gaming Research and Development: https://business.wvu.edu/research-outreach/center-for-gaming-research-and-development; WVU Foundation: https://wvuf.org/
Image Credits: WVU Photo Illustration/Torre Massie
Keywords: Online gambling, sports betting, loss chasing, parlay bets, iGaming, gambling research, responsible gaming, consumer protection, behavioral economics, West Virginia University, Arnold Ventures, problem gambling
