American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION The theme of this paper is that greater tribal self-rule, though favored by tribal populations and a goal of federal Indian policy, comes with a social price. Exercising tribal sovereignty, North Dakota tribal governments, along with other tribal governments across the country, initiated reservation “high stakes gambling.” These tribal “high stakes” gambling enterprises have been praised as examples of successful tribal self-rule and reservation economic development, but that is only part of the story. The other side of the story is that self-rule is accompanied by potential increases in reservation social problems, and, in this case, the problems can be exacerbated by unanticipated gambling-related social dysfunctions. This paper explores a relatively new and uncharted component of Indian gaming. Through primary empirical research, we examine whether there appears to be a positive correlation between the rapid growth in the numbers of tribal casinos and the incidence of pathological gambling activity in two North Dakota Indian tribes—the Devils Lake Sioux of the Fort Totten Reservation and the Chippewa of the Turtle Mountain Reservation. We then compare the rate of pathological gambling activity in the Indian population to the rates for the general population of North Dakota as well as the rates for the general population of Fort Totten, North Dakota, and Belcourt, North Dakota, the major communities on the two reservations. The paper concludes with a discussion of alternative strategies that might be employed to address compulsive gambling behaviors.