Baccarat gamblers get more reckless after they win, while losing online racing bettors log off for longer periods than winners. 

Japanese researchers recently published a study that crunched nearly 8m hands of baccarat played by nearly 4k “middle-aged Asian male” players at the Paradise City casino in South Korea. The goal of the study, which was published in the International Gambling Studies journal, was to determine how repeated and risky betting behavior varies as a function of outcome history.

The researchers sought to detect what effect a sustained winning or losing streak had on gamblers’ intensity levels, i.e. differences in size of betting stakes and whether gamblers made riskier bets (low probability, high reward) based on how well or poorly they did on their previous wagers.

The researchers concluded that gamblers became more reckless after consecutive wins than after consecutive losses. The size of their wagers gradually increased the longer their streak lasted, and this effect was “more pronounced” after sequential wins than sequential losses.