Twelve American Indian (AI) and 12 non-AI participants
gambled on a slot-machine simulation and on video poker. Prior to the
gambling sessions, half of the participants consumed alcohol while the
other half consumed a placebo beverage. They then played the slot-machine
simulation three times, with the percentage of programmed “near misses”
varying across sessions. They also played video poker three times, with the
control the players had over holding and discarding cards varying across
sessions. Results showed that AI participants played significantly fewer
poker hands than did non-AIs and that participants played most when they
had the least control over what cards were played. No significant effect
of alcohol consumption was observed. Likewise, results failed to show
a significant effect of the percentage of near misses when participants
played the slot-machine simulation. The present results lend support for
the idea that the differences in gambling problems between AI and non-AI
reported in the literature are not a function of ethnicity per se. They may
also suggest that providing video poker players with accurate information
may have the unintended effect of increasing the rate at which they gamble.