A recent psychological study suggests that people with a natural tendency toward greed are more likely to participate in gambling and experience negative consequences as a result. The findings indicate that greedy individuals tend to hold distorted beliefs about their chances of winning and their ability to stop playing. This research was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
The authors of the study sought to explore the specific psychological traits that might drive problematic gambling behavior. Joshua Weller, an associate professor in behavioral decision making at the University of Leeds, explained the rationale for the study. “Gambling is incredibly widespread and growing in scope in many countries,” Weller said. “For many people, it’s just entertainment, but for others, it can lead to the experience of real harms, from financial difficulties to impacts on relationships and mental health.”
Previous research has examined how broad personality traits relate to gambling problems. “A lot of research has focused on well-known personality traits like impulsivity or sensation-seeking,” Weller continued. “What struck us, though, is that one trait that feels very intuitively relevant, greed, hadn’t really been examined in real-world gambling contexts.”
The authors wanted to look specifically at dispositional greed, which is a personality trait defined by a constant, unquenchable desire for more. “Dispositional greed is essentially the tendency to always want more and feel dissatisfied with what you have,” Weller noted. “This can be felt not only for money and material things, but also non-material entities too like power, status, even social media ‘likes’.”
The researchers proposed that greedy individuals might be naturally drawn to gambling because it offers a seemingly quick way to acquire more wealth. “It seemed plausible that gambling, which promises the possibility of quick financial gain, might be especially attractive to people high in this trait,” Weller said. “So, we wanted to test the degree to which greed associates with how people gamble, and importantly, whether it’s linked to negative consequences.”
To investigate these ideas, the researchers conducted two separate studies using large groups of people from different countries. The first study involved a representative sample of 1,118 adults from the Netherlands. Participants completed surveys that measured their levels of dispositional greed and materialism. Materialism is a related concept, but it specifically involves placing high value on buying and owning physical goods.
The Dutch participants also answered questions about their gambling habits over the previous twelve months. The scientists asked them if they had participated in various types of games, such as lottery draws, scratch cards, sports betting, or casino games. They also completed a standard questionnaire designed to measure negative consequences associated with gambling.
The results of the first study provided evidence that dispositional greed is linked to broader gambling habits. The authors found that greedier individuals were more likely to engage in multiple different types of gambling activities. This association remained mathematically significant even when the researchers accounted for the participants’ levels of materialism. This suggests that the pure desire for more, rather than just a love of material goods, drives the behavior.
To get a more comprehensive understanding, the scientists conducted a second study in England, a country with a much larger and more established gambling market. This second study included a final sample of 4,783 adults. Some of these individuals were recruited from the general population, while others were specifically chosen because they had a stated interest in gambling.
In the second study, participants completed a short questionnaire to measure their dispositional greed. They also answered questions to measure their levels of motor impulsiveness, which is the tendency to act without thinking. The scientists wanted to make sure that greed had a unique effect on gambling, separate from simply being an impulsive person.
Participants then reported how often they gambled, the types of games they played, and how much money they had spent on gambling in the past fourteen days. To measure negative consequences, the respondents completed a widely used survey that asks people if they have chased their losses, borrowed money to gamble, or felt guilty about their habits. Additionally, the researchers asked the participants who gambled to answer questions about their thought patterns, aiming to measure several cognitive distortions.
The scientists found that higher levels of dispositional greed were strongly associated with a higher likelihood of gambling. Greedy individuals also tended to play more frequently and participate in a wider variety of gambling activities. In addition, dispositional greed was positively linked to higher scores on the measure of problem gambling severity. This means that greedy individuals were more likely to report negative financial and emotional consequences from their habits.
Weller noted the unique role of greed in these outcomes. “We were somewhat surprised that greed predicted gambling harm severity beyond impulsiveness,” he said. “Impulsivity is often treated as the central personality driver of risky behaviors like gambling, and greed itself has been linked to impulsiveness in the past. However, our findings suggest greed adds something distinct.”
The authors suspect that greed provides a distinct motivational push. “While acting quickly or without thinking may be related to gambling, especially in emotionally charged situations, the persistent drive to acquire more and one’s current dissatisfaction with their present condition, may support the drive to gamble as a way to satisfy both,” Weller said.
When looking at the psychological mechanisms involved, the researchers found that greed was closely tied to flawed ways of thinking. People with higher greed scores reported more positive expectations about gambling, mistakenly believing it would relieve stress or bring them happiness. They also exhibited a higher illusion of control, which is the false belief that personal skill can influence a purely random game of chance.
Weller summarized the broader implications of these cognitive patterns. “The key takeaway is that gambling behavior isn’t just about luck, being a risk-taker or being impulsive,” he said. “It’s also shaped by deeper motivational traits like greed. We found that people who score higher in dispositional greed are more likely to gamble, to gamble across more activities, and to experience more negative consequences from gambling.”
The cognitive distortions seem to fuel a harmful cycle. “What’s particularly interesting is how this seems to play out psychologically,” Weller added. “Greedier individuals were more likely to feel confident they’ll win, focus strongly on financial gains and downplay losses, and endorse distorted beliefs about gambling.”
This specific mindset might make it harder for individuals to walk away from a game. “So, at a broader level, the takeaway isn’t ‘greedy people gamble’,” Weller explained. “It’s that a greedy mindset can make gambling feel more appealing and potentially more difficult to disengage from. That’s important for both individuals and for how we think about prevention and intervention.”
Regarding the study’s scope, Weller pointed out some constraints. “Yes, there are a few that are avenues for future research,” he said. “First, these are mostly cross-sectional data, so we can’t say that greed causes gambling harms. It’s also possible that gambling experiences reinforce greedy thinking, or that both influence each other over time.”
The researchers also relied on self-reported survey data. “Second, we asked people to reflect on their gambling experiences and beliefs retrospectively, rather than investigating how greed was associated with actual gambling behavior as it unfolds, as in a casino or whilst making sports bets during a game,” Weller noted.
Another limitation relates to the types of participants involved. “Third, our samples were from the general population rather than clinical populations,” Weller added. “So, though we do see links with problem gambling indicators, we’re not directly studying diagnosed gambling disorder.”
Weller also warned against misusing the findings to shame individuals. “I would strongly caution the reader to avoid oversimplifying these results as ‘greed is bad and explains everything,’” he said. “As being ‘greedy’ is typically not viewed in a positive light, socially, placing the individual solely at blame for the experience of negative gambling consequences invites the potential for stigmatizing people experiencing gambling harms.”
Blaming the individual completely can create harmful barriers to recovery. “While personal factors may indeed account for more negative gambling consequences, it has the potential to square the onus of responsibility on the person experiencing harm,” Weller explained. “In turn, it could potentially lead to increased guilt and shame for these people and decreases in help-seeking when they need it.”
Finally, the researchers suggest looking at the broader context of gambling addiction. “It also might shift the focus to solely person-level intervention, rather than considering if more effective interventions could be realized at the industry and public policy level,” Weller said. “Greed is one piece of a much bigger puzzle that includes environment, access to gambling, life circumstances, and other psychological factors.”
The study, “Hungry Ghosts Eat Casino Chips: Associations Between Dispositional Greed and Gambling,” was authored by Joshua Weller, Marcel Zeelenberg, and Barbara Summers.