Discounting of Past and Future Rewards of Texas Hold’em Gamblers

The present study investigated the delay discounting of future and past monetary rewards by Texas Hold’em Poker gamblers. While present at a poker tournament, eight participants completed three delay discounting tasks which presented choices between smaller immediate and larger delayed consequences. All participants discounted the larger amounts of money in a hyperbolic fashion, and the degree to which discounting occurred appeared to be a function of the magnitude of regular wagering (less than or greater than 10 dollars per game) made during poker play. Results support previous research on the discounting of delayed consequences by gamblers and illustrate that the discounting of past rewards occurs in a similar fashion to the well-documented literature on the discounting of future rewards.