Military gambling is a big business. About $2 billion flows through military-owned slot machines at officers' clubs, activities centers and bowling alleys on 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.
Each year, the armed forces take in more than $120 million from on-base slot machines and $7 million from Army bingo games at home. These funds help pay for recreational programs for the troops.
But even military researchers have 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.
Slot machines have been a fixture of military life for decades. They were banned from domestic military bases in 1951, after a series of scandals. They were removed from Army and Air Force bases in 1972, after more than a dozen people were court-martialed for skimming cash from slot machines in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
But 1,500 machines remained on Navy and Marine Corps bases overseas after that scandal, and in 1980, the Army and Air Force started to restore the machines at many of their overseas bases. The Marine Corps and Navy slot machine programs are now run by the Army; the Air Force still runs its own program.
Today, there are approximately 4,150 modern video slot machines at military bases in nine countries, according to Mr. Isaacs and an Air Force spokesman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/business/19slots.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
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