Slot Machines On Military Bases.

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At US bases, problem gamblers battle odds
International Herald Tribune, France - 3 hours ago
... Today, there are approximately 4,150 modern video slot machines at military bases in nine countries, according to Isaacs and an Air Force spokesman.

At U.S. bases, problem gamblers battle odds
By Diana B. Henriques The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2005

When Carrie Beth Walsh and her two toddlers landed at the airport in Seoul last year, there was no sign of her husband, a U.S. Army pilot who had been transferred there six weeks earlier.

He eventually showed up in a taxi, broke and unprepared for his family's arrival - no rental car for the drive to his base, no apartment, no credit cards in his wallet that were not already up against his loan limits. "He was making more than $60,000 a year," Walsh said. "But we were always broke."

She soon learned why. Her husband, Warrant Officer Aaron Walsh, had pumped over $20,000 into the U.S. Army's slot machines. Last month, his marriage and career shattered, Walsh, 33, resigned from the army to avoid a court-martial on desertion charges stemming from his gambling habit.

Military gambling is a big business. About $2 billion flows through military-owned slot machines at officers' clubs, activities centers and bowling alleys on U.S. overseas bases each year. Most flows back out as jackpots, but 6 percent remains with the house, about the same ratio as in Las Vegas.

The armed forces take in more than $120 million a year from on-base slot machines and $7 million from U.S. Army bingo games at home. The funds help pay for recreational programs.

But even the military has acknowledged that the armed forces are heavily populated by people who, like Aaron Walsh, may be especially vulnerable to gambling addiction: athletic, risk-taking young people who are experiencing severe stress and anxiety.

"And wartime is an environment that is probably creating more vulnerability than usual," said Christine Reilly, executive director of the gambling addiction research institute at Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School.

Over four years ago, the U.S. Congress ordered the Pentagon to study how on-base slot machines affected military families. The Pentagon hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to do the study, but it ended the contract after a few months and completed the study itself.

The final report provided no new data about the rates of problem gambling. But it did caution Congress that the military could not maintain many popular programs, like golf courses and family activity centers, "without slot machine revenue or a significant new source of cash."

One consultant who worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers was Rachel Volberg, a medical sociologist who runs Gemini Resources, which measures gambling rates around the world. "We met a great deal of defensiveness, both in Washington and on base," she said. "Everyone was very concerned that those revenues might go away."

She added: "Only the chaplains took this really seriously. They told us that one out of three people who come to them for counseling have a problem with gambling, but can't tell anyone because they will be dishonorably discharged."

Slot machines are "a very profitable operation," said Peter Isaacs, the chief operating officer of the U.S. Army's Community and Family Support Center, which runs the largest military slot machine program.

Isaacs added, "The vast majority of the troops use the machines responsibly."

Despite research showing that service members are at least as vulnerable to compulsive gambling as civilians - even more vulnerable, some research suggests - the military spends little of its congressional funding, and none of its gambling profits, on treatment for those whose gambling gets out of control.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers report noted "a general lack of accessible treatment for gambling addiction," but that warning was not included in the Pentagon's report to Congress.

It was echoed, however, in a little-noticed research paper written by a team of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps medical personnel last year, describing a gambling addiction program they started in Okinawa in January 2003.

The program treated 35 patients in 2003. Most cited slot machines as their primary form of gambling, although five said they spent "significant time playing bingo" as well. Seven of them, or 20 percent, said they had considered suicide. Although the program's leaders called it "quite promising," it no longer exists, according to a Navy spokesman.

Indeed, there is only one military program that provides the preferred inpatient treatment for gambling addiction, at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California. The center handles about 25 cases a year. But on most military bases, the search for treatment can be frustrating and futile.

Major Tami Dillahunt, a military lawyer at Camp Casey in South Korea, recently defended Private Andrew Foster, a former chaplain's assistant, who was convicted of stealing money to gamble. "He tried to get help," Dillahunt said. "He went to Army Community Services; they said they couldn't help and sent him to Mental Health Services.

"There, they said, 'No, we can't help you - go to your chaplain.' So he goes to his chaplain, who says he's not qualified to help with addiction and refers him to Army Community Services. It was a total runaround."

Mike Catanzaro, who runs the Camp Pendleton program, acknowledged that little other treatment is available. "One of the major obstacles is that there is no policy or mandate to treat pathological gambling in the military," he said.

Slot machines have been a fixture of military life for decades. They were banned from domestic bases in 1951 after a series of scandals and removed from U.S. Army and Air Force bases in 1972.

But 1,500 machines remained on Navy and Marine Corps bases overseas and in 1980, the army and Air Force started to restore the machines at many overseas bases.

Today, there are approximately 4,150 modern video slot machines at military bases in nine countries, according to Isaacs and an Air Force spokesman.
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