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Chasing losses: the odds of getting even and how to stop

What chasing losses looks like, how common it is, why a loss pulls you back, the real odds of winning it back and the tools that help you stop.

Fact-checked 25 October 2026 · 8 sources

Chasing losses means betting more, playing on or coming back another day to win back money you've already lost. It is the most common of the nine problem-gambling warning signs in Britain's national gambling survey, and the arithmetic of getting even shows why, on average, it makes the hole deeper.

What chasing looks like

Researchers separate two kinds. Within a session, chasing means raising your stake after a loss, playing on instead of stopping, or topping up your balance to keep going. Between sessions, it means coming back another day to get even.

The second kind is written into the clinical definition. The DSM-5, the diagnostic manual that defines gambling disorder, lists nine criteria, and one describes a person who "after losing money gambling, often returns another day to get even". A diagnosis needs four or more of the nine within 12 months, along with significant impairment or distress.

Surveys ask about it too. The Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), a nine-question screen used in British gambling surveys, asks: "When you gambled, did you go back another day to try to win back the money you lost?" Each answer scores from 0 for never to 3 for almost always, and a total of 8 or more out of 27 counts as problem gambling.

In a European online dataset studied by Auer and Griffiths, frequent deposits within one session were the best of five chasing markers at picking out players the operator had classed as high risk.

How common it is

In the Gambling Commission's 2025 survey of 20,775 adults in Great Britain, 15.6% of those who had gambled in the past year said they had gone back to try to win back losses at least sometimes, the most widely reported of the nine PGSI items. Next came feeling guilty about gambling (9.9%) and betting more than you could afford to lose (8.7%).

Chasing now and then isn't a diagnosis, and many people without gambling problems say they have done it. It matters because of where it can lead: chasing is the DSM criterion gamblers endorse most often, and a Swedish survey that followed gamblers for five years found it was a stable predictor of moving on to more severe problems.

Why a loss pulls you back

Prospect theory offers one explanation: people judge outcomes against a reference point, such as their starting balance, rather than by what they have now. If a session began at 100 coins and you're on 60, it feels like being 40 down rather than having 60, so a bet that could take you back to 100 becomes more tempting. Thaler and Johnson described this break-even effect in 1990. Losses also tend to weigh more than gains of the same size, known as loss aversion.

Real account data is more mixed. Researchers at the University of British Columbia analysed about 1.9 million bets by 2,000 typical players at a provincially operated online casino in British Columbia, Canada, from October 2014 to August 2015. After a bigger loss on one bet, players raised their next bet and were less likely to quit: on slots, each standard deviation of extra loss (a measure of how widely results spread) raised the next bet by about a quarter and cut the odds of quitting by 13%. But as losses built up over a session, players bet less and quit sooner, which the authors suggest may come from money running short or getting even no longer looking possible. They note that their mid-range sample says little about the heaviest gamblers.

Between sessions, the same team found that on most games players came back more slowly after a bigger loss and sooner after a bigger win. The authors read the average pattern as "limited evidence for loss chasing" but clear evidence of win chasing. Within a session, players also bet more after wins, which may reflect the house money effect: winnings that don't yet feel like your own.

A losing run can also make a win feel due, which it isn't; the gambler's fallacy explains why each bet is independent of the last.

The odds of getting even

Say you're 100 coins down and decide to risk at most another B coins to win it back. In a fair game with no house edge, your average result from here on is zero, whatever bets you make. If the chase works, it wins back at least 100; if it fails, it loses B. For the average to stay at zero, the chance of getting even can be no more than B ÷ (B + 100):

| Chance of getting even | You must risk at least | Down if it fails | |---|--:|--:| | 50% | 100 | 200 | | 75% | 300 | 400 | | 90% | 900 | 1,000 | | 99% | 9,900 | 10,000 |

For a fair coin, the classic gambler's ruin formula gives exactly B ÷ (B + 100). A house edge makes every one of these chances lower.

Now add a house edge. Take a 2× bet that wins 49.5% of the time, a 1% edge. You're 100 down and will risk 100 more, stopping as soon as you're back to even or the 100 is gone:

| How you chase | Chance of getting even | Coins wagered on average | Average result | |---|--:|--:|--:| | One 100-coin bet | 49.5% | 100 | −1 | | 10-coin bets | 45.0% | about 1,000 | −10 | | 1-coin bets | 11.9% | about 7,600 | −76 |

The chances come from the gambler's ruin formula for unequal odds; a simulation agreed with every row. In every row a failed chase leaves you 200 down, double the starting loss, and none comes out ahead on average; even the single bet fails 50.5% of the time. Small bets look safer but cost the most: they keep you betting longer, and as house edge and RTP explains, the average loss is the edge times everything wagered, here 1%. Not chasing is the only option that doesn't add to the average loss.

Doubling systems such as the Martingale turn the same chase into a rule, and no betting system can beat the house edge. On cs2.casino every game shows its house edge and bet limits, and over time the house wins.

How to stop chasing

The decision that protects you is made before the first bet: pick the amount you're prepared to lose, treat it as the price of the session, and stop when it's gone. Chasing reopens that decision after a loss, so the most useful tools are ones that can't be reopened quickly.

On cs2.casino you can set deposit, loss and wager limits over a rolling day, week or month under your account limits. Lowering a limit applies at once, while raising or removing one waits a cooling-off period, so the urge to win back a loss can't undo it on the spot. Self-exclusion is available for 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 6 months or permanently. Responsible gambling limits explains each tool and lists free helplines.

Cashing out after a loss can help, though not for everyone. A 2016 study by Alex Imas found across four experiments that people took more risk after a loss that existed only on paper, as a lower balance, and less after a realized loss, one they had actually paid. In an online experiment with 689 gamblers, published in 2024, a simulated cash-out and redeposit on a second site after six of nine bets made the group without gambling problems bet significantly less. It made no significant difference for at-risk gamblers or people with gambling problems, and the authors concluded that stronger interventions may be needed for them.

Signs to watch for: going back another day to win back money, topping up mid-session, raising your stake to get back to zero, or deciding to stop only once you're even. If they sound familiar, lower your limits or self-exclude before the next session; the responsible gaming page has more on keeping play in check.

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