The Economist has turned its attentions to gambling. in the magazine's May 8th issue addressed is some research into why we bet by academics at Nottingham and Cambridge universities (incidentally, as a graduate of the latter it pains me to acknowledge that the former steals a march when addressing this favourite subject of mine). 

The work explores measurable reactions in the brain to near misses and how they drive us on to gamble more and more  with occasionally apocalyptic consequences. To summarise, in a controlled experiment, the more that 20 human guineas pigs gambled the more active their "midbrain" production of dopamine - a neurotransmitter that often features in addicts -  when failing narrowly to land the jackpot across a wide range of gambling spheres.  

The strength of this research is that the data does not rely on the honesty of those taking part, a weakness in much work in this area as I pointed out in my book You Bet: The Betfair Story last year. Gamblers can be terminologically inexact with the truth (to borrow Churchill's preferred definition of lying) but they cannot massage the reflex reactions of their brains. At least not very easily. 

As a rule I salute all research into gambling. So well done everyone involved. Yet I have a few quibbles. Of the 20 volunteers, only two were women. Would I be missing the point to ask, what are the odds today that the British betting market consists of only 10 per cent of the stronger sex? Equally, would I be guilty of trivialising the findings here by pointing out that the name of the academic at Nottingham University behind this work is Henry Chase, with a surname aptly describing exactly what pathological gamblers do with their losses.