The Big Money and High Cost of the US Military's On-Base Slot Machines

When Dave Yeager stumbled upon the chamber of shiny, casino-style slot machines, he felt an instant pull. It was his first night of deployment in Seoul, South Korea, and the United States Army officer was in a bad headspace. The September 11, 2001, attacks had just happened, and he had a wife and two children under the age of 5 at home whom he missed fiercely. He felt lost.

Yeager had never seen a slot machine on a military base before—there weren’t any in the US—but he figured trying his luck couldn’t make things worse. “As I’m sitting there, the first thing I’m noticing is that my shoulders are relaxing,” Yeager remembers. “Then, I won. In that moment, all the stress, the anxiety, the pain, the hurt, the fear—it washed away.”

Pulling the slot machine’s levers felt like a salve—until they didn’t. Yeager found another room filled with slot machines at his next base. Over a period of about three months, he spiraled into what he says was a “devastating obsession” with playing the military-run casino games. He eventually drained his savings, sold his stuff, even stole from his unit. He didn’t tell anyone what was going on. “I thought no one could help me,” he says.

While not everyone who plays the slots struggles like Yeager did, a growing body of evidence indicates that veterans and service members are more likely to struggle with gambling disorders than civilians, says Shane W. Kraus, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies gambling disorders. Service members also tend to be more hesitant to seek help, out of fear of losing rank, security clearance, or being dishonorably discharged, he adds.

Not much has changed since Yeager served—in fact, within the last five years, the slot machine programs the military runs have been making increasing amounts of cash. And, some advocates say, they’re not funneling enough of what they make into education on problem gambling.

https://www.wired.com/story/us-military-on-base-slot-machines-gambling-addiction/