Luke Clark

The Question That Has Shaped My Career

I’m Luke Clark, and for most of my professional life I have been trying to answer one deceptively simple question: why do people continue to gamble even when the odds are clearly against them?

It’s easy to default to moral explanations — lack of discipline, irrationality, greed. But those answers never satisfied me. As a psychologist trained in experimental methods, I wanted to understand what is happening inside the decision-making system itself. What psychological mechanisms are being activated? What neural circuits are being recruited? Why do some individuals walk away easily, while others remain engaged despite mounting losses?

Today, I am a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Centre for Gambling Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada. But my journey into gambling research began much earlier, during my academic training in the United Kingdom, where I focused on cognitive neuroscience and decision-making under uncertainty.

Gambling as a Laboratory for the Human Mind

Gambling offers something uniquely powerful for psychological research: a pure behavioural model of reinforcement.

Unlike substance addictions, gambling does not introduce an external chemical into the brain. There is no drug. No pharmacological alteration. Instead, gambling leverages reward prediction, anticipation, uncertainty, and reinforcement — systems that are already fundamental to how the brain operates.

Variable ratio reinforcement schedules — the same mechanisms studied in classical behavioural psychology experiments — are embedded directly into slot machines, roulette wheels, sports betting platforms, and online casinos. The unpredictability of reward is not accidental. It is structural.

From a scientific perspective, this makes gambling a near-perfect environment for studying:

• Reward learning

• Habit formation

• Cognitive bias

• Risk sensitivity

• Neural prediction error

The casino floor and the digital betting app are not just entertainment environments — they are applied behavioural laboratories.

The Psychology of “Almost Winning”

One of the most influential strands of my research has focused on the near-miss effect.

A near-miss is a loss that looks visually or structurally close to a win. On a slot machine, this might be two jackpot symbols aligned with a third just one position away. Objectively, it is no different from any other losing outcome. The probability structure does not change.

But psychologically, it feels different.

Through behavioural experiments and functional MRI studies, my colleagues and I demonstrated that near-misses activate reward-related regions of the brain — including areas involved in dopaminergic signalling — in ways that resemble actual wins. In other words, the brain partially codes near-misses as rewarding events.

This finding helps explain why near-misses are so motivating. They create a sense of proximity, of being “close,” which can increase persistence. The brain’s reinforcement system responds not just to reward itself, but to the anticipation and perceived progress toward reward.

From a regulatory perspective, this raises important questions about how structural design features influence engagement.

Cognitive Distortions: When the Brain Misreads Randomness

Another central theme in my work has been the study of cognitive distortions in gambling.

Humans are pattern-detecting organisms. That trait is evolutionarily useful. But in games governed by randomness, pattern detection becomes misapplied.

Common distortions include:

• Illusion of control – believing one’s actions influence random outcomes

• Gambler’s fallacy – expecting a reversal after a streak

• Hot-hand belief – assuming a winning streak will continue

• Probability misestimation – misunderstanding odds in complex games

These distortions are not signs of low intelligence. They are predictable by-products of how the human cognitive system evolved to interpret patterns and causality.

My research has attempted to map these distortions not only at the behavioural level, but also at the neural level. By examining how the brain responds during distorted reasoning, we gain insight into how reinforcement and belief systems interact.

Inside the Brain: Reward, Risk, and Anticipation

Using neuroimaging tools such as functional MRI, I have studied how the brain’s reward circuitry responds during gambling tasks.

Particular areas of interest include:

• Ventral striatum

• Orbitofrontal cortex

• Insula

• Anterior cingulate cortex

These regions are involved in reward anticipation, outcome evaluation, emotional response to uncertainty, and error monitoring.

One critical insight from this work is that anticipation often drives behaviour more powerfully than reward itself. The period before an outcome — when uncertainty is highest — produces strong neural activation. Modern gambling products intensify this anticipation through sound effects, animations, countdowns, and rapid feedback cycles.

Speed matters. Frequency matters. Sensory cues matter.

The brain does not respond to gambling as a static probability equation. It responds to a dynamic, emotionally charged sequence of anticipation and outcome.

From the UK to Canada: Building a Research Hub

After establishing my research career in the United Kingdom, I moved to Canada and joined the University of British Columbia. At UBC, I now direct the Centre for Gambling Research.

The Centre brings together expertise from:

• Cognitive neuroscience

• Clinical psychology

• Behavioural economics

• Public health

• Computational modelling

Our goal is not to assume that all gambling is pathological. Many people gamble recreationally without severe harm. The scientific challenge is identifying the tipping points — when engagement transitions into persistence, and persistence into disorder.

We study:

The Digital Shift: A Structural Acceleration

The gambling environment has changed dramatically over the past decade.

Mobile accessibility means gambling is no longer confined to casinos or betting shops. It is available 24/7. In-play sports betting compresses decision cycles into seconds. Online casino games eliminate natural pauses that once existed between rounds.

From a neuroscience perspective, this acceleration increases the density of reinforcement events. More rapid cycles mean more learning trials. More trials strengthen habits.

Digital environments also personalise risk. Algorithms track behaviour, offer tailored promotions, and reduce friction in depositing funds. These structural shifts matter — not because gambling is new, but because its intensity and accessibility have been amplified.

Scientific Neutrality and Public Responsibility

I see my role as a scientist first and foremost. That means maintaining empirical rigour and resisting exaggerated claims. Not everyone who gambles develops a disorder. Not every product causes harm in every individual.

But science also carries responsibility. When evidence shows that certain structural features amplify risk, those findings belong in public discussion. Evidence about near-miss effects, reward sensitivity, or reinforcement speed is relevant to debates about product design and consumer protection.

Research does not dictate policy — but it informs it.

A Snapshot of My Academic Profile

What Drives Me Now

At its core, my research is about understanding behaviour without oversimplifying it.

Gambling disorder is a recognised behavioural addiction, but it is also a window into broader questions about how humans respond to uncertainty, reward, and risk. By studying gambling scientifically — at the levels of cognition, brain function, and environment — we can replace moral narratives with evidence-based insight.

If there is a unifying idea across my work, it is this: gambling behaviour is not mysterious. It is not irrational chaos. It is the predictable outcome of reinforcement systems interacting with structured environments.

And once we understand those systems clearly, we are better equipped to reduce harm while preserving autonomy.

That, for me, is where science becomes genuinely useful.