Video Poker Research Articles

Within-session chasing of losses and wins in an online eCasino

Chasing refers to the escalation of betting behaviour. It is conventionally seen when losing but can also be seen after wins. Diagnostic and screening items for gambling problems describe chasing as returning ‘another day’ to gamble. However, gamblers may also chase within sessions, and this is particularly relevant in online gambling. This study focused on two expressions of within-session chasing: (1) increasing the bet amount, or (2) a reduced probability of quitting the session, as a function of prior losses or wins. These expressions were examined across five online gambling products: slot machines, probability games, blackjack, video poker, and roulette. Our results showed that gamblers bet more and played longer sessions after immediate losses, but they bet less and played shorter sessions when losing cumulatively. The reversed pattern in the cumulative model may be due to financial constraints. For wins, gamblers bet more after both immediate and cumulative wins, but they also played shorter sessions. Chasing patterns were qualitatively similar by game type—with limited evidence for our hypothesis that chasing would be greatest for slot machines as an established high-risk category. Overall, chasing is multi-faceted, varying across the behavioural expressions, by the immediate or cumulative timeframe of prior outcomes, and by game type.

Between-session chasing of losses and wins in an online eCasino.

This study characterized chasing behaviour as the time to return to an online gambling website after a losing or a winning visit. We analyzed a naturalistic dataset from an eCasino (PlayNow.com, the provincial platform for British Columbia, Canada), comprising 1,909,681 sessions from 15,544 individuals. Analyses distinguished sessions on slot machines, blackjack, roulette, video poker, probability games, or mixed-category sessions. Overall, gamblers on most games returned more slowly as a function of the prior loss, and more quickly as a function of the prior win. Loss chasing intensities in blackjack, probability, video poker, and mixed sessions did not differ significantly from slot machines, but roulette was associated with shorter intervals to return (b = -0.13, p < 0.001). Similarly, win chasing did not vary across slot machines, blackjack, probability games, and video poker, but roulette (b = -0.08, p < 0.001) and mixed (b = -0.02, p = 0.009) sessions were associated with shorter intervals. The average behavioural patterns provide limited evidence for loss chasing but clearly indicate win chasing. Although slot machines are commonly considered a high-risk product, roulette in our analyses was associated with the greatest chasing intensities.

Increased volatility in video poker results in more winning players but shorter winning streaks - Evidence from simulations.

Electronic gambling machines are a prominent cause of significant gambling harms globally. We use simulations of a simplified video poker game to show how changes in game volatility, defined primarily by the size of the main prize, affect patterns of wins and losses as well as winning streaks. We found that in low- and medium volatility games the proportion of winning players quickly drops to zero after about 30 h of play, while in the high volatility game 5% of players are still winning after playing for 100 h. However, the proportion of winning streaks was significantly higher in the low- and medium volatility games compared with high volatility: the simulated players were on a winning streak about 26.3, 25.6 and 18% of the time in the low-, medium- and high volatility games, respectively. Fast-paced video poker with varying volatility levels but identical return-to-player rates and win frequencies can yield highly different result patterns across individuals. These patterns may be counter-intuitive for players and difficult to realize without simulations and visualizations. We argue that the findings have relevance for responsible gambling communication and for building a better understanding of how cognitive biases influence gambling behaviour.

DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE GAMBLING IN THE GAMBLING BUSINESS SYSTEM

The proposed study is devoted to the theoretical analysis of the development of online gambling in the gaming business system. In order to better understanding the concept of online gambling, we suggest that it is not monolithic, but is consisting of segments: casinos (commercial and tribal), state lotteries, betting on pairs, sports betting, charitable gambling, gambling on the Internet, standalone electronic gaming devices (such as video poker and video keno), and so on. Each group has its own distinct set of concerns, communities of interest, and balances of assets and liabilities. As it was noted in a report by the National Commission on the Impact of Gambling, technology in this area is developing at a rapid pace, and its potential is only beginning to be seen. The state of development of online gambling is analyzed in countries where it is legalized. And such countries that have legalized online games can be tentatively classified into three groups: 1) countries that offer operators inexpensive licensing with low tax rates and little or no control by regulators; 2) countries from the European jurisdiction, which also regulate online games for economic development, but have more rules compared to the first group; 3) developed countries with complex regulatory policies. Countries falling into the third group face the challenge of having their markets taken over by websites originating from the jurisdictions of the first two groups. Liberalization of slot machines and online gambling has a positive effect on, this growth index will be greater in those countries where gambling is oriented to local consumers. COVID-19 led to lower market revenues in the gambling sector in Europe in 2020 and 2021 compared to previous years and accelerated the previously existing trend of increasing the percentage of online gaming. Although there are significant differences in the share of online gambling in different national gambling markets, it is worth noting that with the increase in the share of online gambling, the amount of income to the budgets of countries also increases.

A Drunken Walk in Las Vegas: Catalan Convolutions and Gambling

SummaryAs a mathematician in Las Vegas unwilling to hunt for positive-expected-value video poker machines, we know that eventually we will lose all the money we are willing to gamble. But how long will this take? Answering this seemingly simple question takes us from Catalan convolutions to generating functions as we explore a probability distribution related to a one-dimensional drunkard’s walk.

Effects of alcohol, initial gambling outcomes, impulsivity, and gambling cognitions on gambling behavior using a video poker task.

Drinking and gambling frequently co-occur, and concurrent gambling and drinking may lead to greater negative consequences than either behavior alone. Building on prior research on the effects of alcohol, initial gambling outcomes, impulsivity, and gambling cognitions on gambling behaviors using a chance-based (nonstrategic) slot-machine task, the current study explored the impact of these factors on a skill-based (strategic) video poker task. We anticipated larger average bets and greater gambling persistence under alcohol relative to placebo, and expected alcohol effects to be moderated by initial gambling outcomes, impulsivity, and gambling cognitions. Participants (N = 162; 25.9% female) were randomly assigned to alcohol (target BrAC = .08g%) or placebo and were given $10 to wager on a simulated video poker task, which was programmed to produce 1 of 3 initial outcomes (win, breakeven, or lose) before beginning a progressive loss schedule. Despite evidence for validity of the video poker task and alcohol administration paradigm, primary hypotheses were not supported. Individuals who received alcohol placed smaller wagers than participants in the placebo condition, though this effect was not statistically significant, and the direction of effects was reversed in at-risk gamblers (n = 41). These findings contradict prior research and suggest that alcohol effects on gambling behavior may differ by gambling type (nonstrategic vs. strategic games). Interventions that suggest alcohol is universally disinhibiting may be at odds with young adults' lived experience and thus be less effective than those that recognize the greater complexity of alcohol effects. (PsycINFO Database Record

Poker-CNN: A Pattern Learning Strategy for Making Draws and Bets in Poker Games Using Convolutional Networks

Poker is a family of card games that includes many varia- tions. We hypothesize that most poker games can be solved as a pattern matching problem, and propose creating a strong poker playing system based on a unified poker representa- tion. Our poker player learns through iterative self-play, and improves its understanding of the game by training on the results of its previous actions without sophisticated domain knowledge. We evaluate our system on three poker games: single player video poker, two-player Limit Texas Hold’em, and finally two-player 2-7 triple draw poker. We show that our model can quickly learn patterns in these very different poker games while it improves from zero knowledge to a competi- tive player against human experts. The contributions of this paper include: (1) a novel represen- tation for poker games, extendable to different poker vari- ations, (2) a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based learning model that can effectively learn the patterns in three different games, and (3) a self-trained system that signif- icantly beats the heuristic-based program on which it is trained, and our system is competitive against human expert players.

Alcohol affects video lottery terminal (VLT) gambling behaviors and cognitions differently.

People frequently combine alcohol use and gambling. However, our understanding of the effects of alcohol on gambling behavior is limited, both in terms of what the effects are and how they occur. The effects of a moderately intoxicating dose of alcohol (i.e., a blood alcohol concentration of .06 g%) on the video lottery terminal (VLT) gambling behaviors and cognitions of community-recruited nonpathological (n = 30) and probable pathological gamblers (n = 30) were compared. Alcohol increased the rate of double up betting (i.e., choosing to play a bonus game, after a winning video poker hand, which involves trying to pick a higher ranked card than the dealer's card from among 5 face down cards) of probable pathological gamblers, but did not influence their irrational beliefs about VLT play. Alcohol maintained the irrational beliefs about VLT play of nonpathological gamblers, but did not influence their gambling behaviors. Results are consistent with a growing body of research finding that gambling cognitions have an equivocal role in explaining actual gambling behaviors. Potential mechanisms for the observed effects are discussed. Applied implications discussed include: educating regular VLT players about the effects of alcohol on irrational gambling cognitions; reconsidering policies and practices that make alcohol available where machine gambling takes place; and targeting even moderate alcohol use in the treatment of gambling problems.

Neurocognitive dysfunction in strategic and non-strategic gamblers.

It has been theorized that there may be subtypes of pathological gambling, particularly in relation to the main type of gambling activities undertaken. Whether or not putative pathological gambling subtypes differ in terms of their clinical and cognitive profiles has received little attention. Subjects meeting DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling were grouped into two categories of preferred forms of gambling - strategic (e.g., cards, dice, sports betting, stock market) and non-strategic (e.g., slots, video poker, pull tabs). Groups were compared on clinical characteristics (gambling severity, and time and money spent gambling), psychiatric comorbidity, and neurocognitive tests assessing motor impulsivity and cognitive flexibility. Seventy-seven subjects were included in this sample (45.5% females; mean age: 42.7±14.9) which consisted of the following groups: strategic (n=22; 28.6%) and non-strategic (n=55; 71.4%). Non-strategic gamblers were significantly more likely to be older, female, and divorced. Money spent gambling did not differ significantly between groups although one measure of gambling severity reflected more severe problems for strategic gamblers. Strategic and non-strategic gamblers did not differ in terms of cognitive function; both groups showed impairments in cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control relative to matched healthy volunteers. These preliminary results suggest that preferred form of gambling may be associated with specific clinical characteristics but are not dissociable in terms of cognitive inflexibility and motor impulsivity.

How much to bet on video poker

How much to bet on video poker

How Much to Bet on Video Poker

How Much to Bet on Video Poker

Journal Digest

Journal Digest

I Am Grand Rapids

173 As opposed to the airlines, the bus people didn’t mind my loading seven large pieces of luggage into the Greyhound’s belly free of charge. No one even questioned why I checked in an Antler hardside, two Samsonite Spinner uprights, a Victorinox Swiss Army cargo duffel , one twenty-seven-inch Titan, and two vintage leather suitcases— all with fancy ID tags that didn’t bear my name. The tags had other people’s names on them, is what I’m saying, for the luggage had traveled haphazardly around these United States, become temporarily lost or delayed, and finally arrived at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. I’m a bag runner. That means I get contracted out to return people’s temporarily lost or delayed belongings, most of which showed up at dawn, when I started my job. Unlike every other faction of employment in America—teaching, high finance, construction, and the airline industry, for example—my job had seemed secure up until I made this one particular pickup. I collected the addresses, loaded the van, and, instead of stopping seventy miles north, in Asheville, where all these angry travelers resided without their clothes, toiletries, and vacation gifts, kept on driving, fifty miles past, to the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino. I went inside, actually won a few hundred dollars within an hour, then returned to my van parked a half mile away, turned the ignition, threw a rod, and blew the engine. fiction GEORGE SINGLETON I Am Rapids Grand 174 ecotone Maybe I had a gambling problem. It was not the first time I’d been to the casino, but with the exception of those six or eight times when I’d kept going to the ATM for more money to put into tight video-poker machines, I knew when to quit. Anyway, as I say, up until this point, a Tuesday, all had been secure. Being a bag runner wasn’t something I’d have chiseled into my tombstone, but I considered it meaningful employment until I had enough money to quit and write one of those dummies’ guides to winning at Shamrock Sevens, or Deuces Wild, or Jacks or Better. I foresaw an entire series ahead of me, excepting keno. With that money, who knows? Maybe I’d take up flying, become a pilot . I could look people in the eye—people closest to me—and go, “Haha -ha, I told you.” But at this point I was receiving phone calls from my boss, picking up luggage from an office adjacent to the baggage claim area, and driving around with suitcases that had been to Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston, Charlotte, Memphis, Salt Lake City, et al. I wore a name tag, though on occasion frustrated ex-passengers chose to call me Fuck Face, Shit Head, Pissant, Numb Nuts, and Dickhead. “Hey, Lick Knob, thanks so much for charging me thirty dollars so my bags wouldn’t show up where I did,” someone might say to me, man or woman alike. “How is it that I can fly from La Guardia to Greenville nonstop, and my suitcase ends up in Grand Rapids, Michigan?” I’ve never kept proper, scholarly notes and graphed it all out, but I would bet the luggage that accidentally ended up in Michigan had something to do with a harried and inept ticket agent seeing “Gr” and making assumptions. I said “Grrrr” to a lot of people myself. What I didn’t say to those who took it out on me was “Look, Screw Gravy, you’re blaming the wrong person.” I got it. If anyone understands frustration and futility, it’s me. I might bring that up in the first paragraph of my gambling books. I could bring it up in regards to video poker, and in my job right before, when I led a more glamorous lifestyle. You see, up until I became a bag runner, I’d worked as the specialteams coach at a college whose president finally realized that an institution of higher learning intent on gaining a reputation as an institution of higher learning didn’t need a perennial 1–10 football team that cost the school money and only...

Gambling pathology is associated with dampened cortisol response among men and women

Pathological gambling has many similarities to pharmacological addiction. Notably, both pathological gambling and drug addiction are characterized by aberrations in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis responding. As well, there are indications that gender differences may play a role in these processes. Whether gender and/or HPA response are associated with pathological gambling was of interest. Recreational and pathological gamblers (15 men and 6 women per group) had the HPA factor, cortisol, assessed in saliva before and after watching a video of their preferred mode of gambling (slot machines, horse race betting, scratch-off tickets, blackjack, video poker, craps, sports betting, online casino games, or lottery tickets), and a video of neutral stimuli (a rollercoaster ride). Basal levels of salivary cortisol did not significantly differ among recreational and pathological gamblers. However, recreational gamblers demonstrated significantly increased salivary cortisol levels after the gambling and rollercoaster videos, whereas pathological gamblers demonstrated no salivary cortisol increase in response to either video stimulus. There was also a non-significant trend for women to have a greater cortisol response to video stimuli compared to men. These data suggest that pathological gambling is associated with hypoactive HPA response to gambling stimuli, similar to chronic drug exposure, and gender may contribute to this effect.

The Effect of Near-Miss Rate and Card Control when American Indians and Non-Indians Gamble in a Laboratory Situation: The Influence of Alcohol

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.

Bonus Hunter: Confessions of an Online Gambler

Bonus HunterConfessions of an Online Gambler Todd James Pierce (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Illustration by Liz Priddy [End Page 112] To say I was addicted to gambling would not be accurate. I was never addicted to gambling. I was merely addicted to the money I made from gambling. For almost six years I earned my living as an online gambler. I gambled at casinos and sport books, many of which eventually blacklisted me. I played over a million hands of blackjack, my game of choice, and when I was banned from blackjack, I played video poker, roulette and baccarat. I wrote “gambler” as my profession when I filed taxes. On a good month I made $12,000; on a bad month $6,000. At the time, the money seemed important because I was a graduate student and therefore poor, but money is never the real story. The real story is always more complex than the simple [End Page 113] accumulation of wealth. In my case, the real story is how money changed me, how it made me understand the dark underside of the American dream. In 1999 I was a fourth-year PhD student at Florida State University. My field was English, with an emphasis in creative writing. I managed our university’s visiting writers series. I coedited our literary journal, which was then called Sundog: The Southeast Review. I taught one undergraduate course each term. I read voraciously. In terms of professional development, I had published twenty short stories and had recently sold my first novel to a publisher in England. But despite a $7,000 publishing advance, I was still living check to-check. I was carrying $14,000 in credit-card debt, all of it acquired while I’d been in school. And my $900 monthly teaching stipend covered little more than rent and basic living expenses. To acquire books, I scouted the Internet for coupons. Back in the early days of e-commerce, startup online “e-tailers,” such as Amazon and Buy.com, sent out weekly coupons to entice customers to browse the wares on their virtual shelves. These coupons offered customers $10 off a $10 purchase and sometimes $20 off a $20 purchase. This meant I could buy two or three books each week, paying little more than the cost of shipping. I found the coupons posted on various web discussion boards, but the coupon discussion board at Fat Wallet was by far the most helpful resource on the web. Then one day, next to the coupons, I saw a thread for an online casino, mixed in with the usual Amazon coupons: this works! $500 free with $500 deposit! Out of curiosity, I clicked on the thread, believing it to be a scam, only to find that two or three well-known discussion board members were claiming to have won and been paid by this online casino. My reaction was one of skepticism: only morons would try such a scheme. But in actuality, these ludicrous-sounding offers weren’t a scam. At least, most of them weren’t. They were a desperate attempt by overseas casinos to establish an online customer base in the United States. To accomplish this, these operations faced a large problem: How does a business based in Costa Rica, Grenada or the Isle of Man persuade wealthy Americans to enter their credit-card numbers into an unregulated online casino? Their solution: offer each new player hundreds of dollars in bonus money simply to establish an online gambling account at their casino. For the next six months, I passively watched as regular board members posted messages on Fat Wallet saying that they had made money by playing [End Page 114] at online casinos. The early deals were ridiculously easy: deposit $500, receive a $500 bonus, gamble it all once and make a withdrawal. No skill whatsoever was required to make a profit using roulette. Simply throw $480 on black, $480 on red, the rest on zero (assuming the casino used a single-zero roulette wheel). With this strategy, every player was guaranteed a minimum profit of $460. If the wheel struck zero, you won a little extra...

How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation (review)

A P R I L 2 0 0 8 149 This collection offers much-needed primary evidence on the social history of the Civil War. Those interested in military developments will enjoy Miller’s perceptions of Confederate leadership and battlefield engagements . The insightful nature of the letters and McMurry’s careful annotations make this an important work for scholars and general enthusiasts of the period. VICTORIA E. OTT Birmingham-Southern College How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation. By Michael Nelson and John Mason. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. xiv, 263 pp. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-8071-3254-8. The authors of How the South Joined the Gambling Nation chronicle the politics of gambling in Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Gambling takes on many forms, and states pick and choose among casinos, state-run lotteries, horse or dog tracks, video poker, or charitable bingo. Every southern state supports at least one type of gambling. However different the states are from each other, the story of legalized gambling is similar in all. It starts with a state looking longingly at money that their residents dump into another state’s gambling industry. Then a Democrat claims that it is lost state revenue that can be used for education and scholarships. Finally, the state passes a constitutional amendment or law that allows gambling in the state, to the chagrin of most Republicans, Christian conservatives, and neighboring states that will now have to work harder to attract nonresident gamblers. Nelson and Mason provide systematic analysis of the conflict generated by gambling policy. One of the many benefits of a federal system is that states can experiment with public policies. If successful, those policies will be adopted by bordering states, in a process referred to as policy diffusion. While policy diffusion explains why an issue gets on a state’s agenda, it is a state’s unique internal characteristics that determine the fate of the issue. All of the states considered here had similar internal characteristics such as floundering economies, the risk of large deficits, the desire to increase funding for education, and the opportunity to raise revenue without increasing taxes. Finally, they all turned to some form of gambling as a remedy. Southern Democrats, who were still winning elections on the issue of education, sought to satisfy their constituencies (teachers and parents) and shore up their electoral base while trying to T H E A L A B A M A R E V I E W 150 avoid raising taxes. The Republican Party campaigned against the efforts to legalize gambling because their successful opposition would fragment key Democratic constituencies. Of all the chapters, those on Georgia and Alabama stand out. The authors argue that proponents of lotteries should model their campaign for a legalized lottery after Georgia’s successful education lottery and avoid the missteps of Alabama’s pro-lottery governor Don Siegelman. By copying Georgia’s lottery, Siegelman sent a message to Alabamians that it was Georgia that had the largest say in the design of the failed Alabama lottery plan. Other chapters stand alone very well. Those interested in a particular state can read the relevant chapter. The introductory and concluding chapters, however, provide the context for the case studies and analyze how they collectively inform our understanding of the similarity and differences among the states discussed. Unlike casinos, racing tracks, video poker, and charitable bingo— which are all administered by private, for-profit organizations—state-run lotteries pose a serious moral dilemma. By not explicitly delving into the moral question of whether or not state governments should be peddling lotteries to their citizenry, the authors lost the opportunity to engage the reader on this important issue. Prior to 1964, state-run lotteries were rare and gambling was illegal in most states. The need to generate revenue without increasing taxes has made lotteries the primary “voluntary tax” upon which states have capitalized; most have state-run lotteries. The unfortunate consequence is that the most vulnerable segment of society, minorities and the poor, foot the bill for middle-class whites who receive a disproportionate...

A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of olanzapine for the treatment of video poker pathological gamblers

Emerging evidence suggests that dopaminergic and serotonergic functioning are altered in pathological gamblers; yet, there are no FDA-approved medications for pathological gambling and there have only been a limited number of clinical trials that have been conducted. Olanzapine was identified as a candidate medication for pathological gamblers because it modifies both dopaminergic and serotonergic function. Moreover, preliminary studies have shown that olanzapine effectively reduces impulsivity in other psychiatric disorders, a pharmacological target of interest for pathological gamblers. In this study, 21 pathological gamblers, whose primary gambling activity was video poker, were enrolled in a seven-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Outcome measures included self-reported urges for gambling, frequency of gambling behavior, and self-reported mood and anxiety levels. The results revealed that all study participants reported reduced levels of gambling urges, gambling behavior, and mood and anxiety symptoms. Olanzapine administration was not associated with an incremental effect versus placebo. While these findings suggest that olanzapine is not an efficacious treatment for video poker pathological gamblers, olanzapine may still be an effective treatment for a specific subset of pathological gamblers, including those with a co-occurring psychiatric disorder.

Successful Aging and Gambling

Using a sample of 449 Las Vegas and Clark County, Nevada, residents ages 55 and older, the authors examine predictors of past-year and lifetime risk for problem gambling behavior. They examine the salience of gambling opportunities for the respondents' decision to move to Las Vegas and whether they currently gamble as a significant part of their recreation. Bivariate analyses show the importance of gambling opportunities for predicting at-risk status. Logistic regression analyses demonstrate that those who currently use gambling as a significant part of their recreation are 4 times more likely than others to be at risk. Furthermore, respondents who primarily play video poker are twice as likely as others to be at risk. Respondents' race, income, and length of time living in Las Vegas also predict at-risk behavior. The authors discuss the implications of these findings and their relationships to the aging, gambling, and problem gambling literatures.

Voting with a Hand on the Bible and Not on the Wallet: The 1996 Video Poker Referendum in Louisiana

Abstract. The 1996 gambling referendum in Louisiana provided a unique opportunity to study voters' preferences. At the time of the referendum, video poker machines legally operated in all of Louisiana's 64 parishes (counties). Video poker was voted down in 31 parishes and retained in 33 parishes. Voters also allowed the New Orleans land‐based casino and 15 riverboat casinos to continue their operations. The extant horse racing and pari‐mutuel betting were not voted on.We examine the economic, demographic, and religious factors that influenced how people voted on the issue of legalized video poker. This study is of interest because in recent years, legalized gambling has been expanding around the world. We know of no other referendum on gambling that covered an area as large as an entire U.S. state—all of Louisiana—and offered voters control over gambling in their locality.Months before the 1996 referendum, the news media suggested several factors that might determine the outcome of the vote. The media concluded that concern over jobs would be the major influence on the outcome. Other important factors included a campaign against gambling by Southern Baptist churches and the simultaneous national presidential election. We investigate whether these factors, along with demographic factors such as age and education, influenced the results of the gambling referendum.Surprisingly, we found no clear evidence that the economic health of a parish or the preexisting size of its gambling industry determined the vote. The presence of Southern Baptists in a parish increased the likelihood that gambling would be voted down. Democratic voters tended to vote for gambling, as did black voters. Age and education levels of voters did not appear to influence their votes on gambling. Voters in parishes that bordered other states were more likely to retain gambling. Overall, it appeared that personal values were more important in determining voter behavior than financial considerations. People were voting with their hearts, not their pocketbooks.