Experimental Social Science Laboratory (Xlab)

Anecdotal evidence suggests that in a gambling environment people might violate “pre-commitments,” and subsequently bet more than they had initially planned. In this paper, we investigate this phenomenon in a scenario where i) participants have full information about the gambles prior to the planning phase ii) the time period between the planning and actual phases of the gambles is very short, iii) participants believed that their plans will be executed, iv) and participants are reminded of their planned bets right before they make their actual bets. In a series of three experiments, we assess the presence, shape and potential processes underlying dynamic inconsistencies in a sequence of two fair gambles.