The military is full of young men who are drawn to risky behaviors, a demographic that experts say has the greatest probability for developing gambling addictions.
“The biopsychosocial factors of that military population — it’s likely a younger male audience, high-risk takers, adrenaline seekers — those types of personalities that are drawn to the military are also very likely drawn to gambling for the same reasons,” said Cait Huble, director of communications for the National Council on Problem Gambling.
Experts who study addiction say gambling is a blind spot in the military’s approach to mental health. Each branch treats problem gambling differently, ranging from a mental health issue to a “crime against society” like prostitution. Official data on gambling in the ranks comes through voluntary surveys, responses to which are often not truthful.
But advocates hope new funding from Congress might soon begin to change that.
“Gambling addiction holistically, across the spectrum, even outside the DoD population, is horrendously underresearched. We have very limited data,” Huble told Task & Purpose. “We don’t have good prevalence information on the general population and then within military populations, especially, there is not really standardized screening from branch to branch.”
As defense officials finalize the 2026 budget, the National Council on Problem Gambling — which advocates for addiction treatment but still supports legalized betting — is asking Congress to help study gambling in the military to improve prevention and treatment options. Major gambling companies like FanDuel Group and BetMGM are also pushing Congress to study the issue in the military.
In June, the council sent a letter to Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), who lead the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, asking that problem gambling issues in the military be included as an eligible topic for Peer-Reviewed Medical Research Program in the fiscal year 2026 defense appropriations bill. The letter was signed by BetMGM, FanDuel Group, MGM Resorts International, and problem gambling councils from 29 states.
As gambling has grown, research has not
The last study to look at the issue of gambling across the U.S. population at large was done in 1999 by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, which noted that legalized gambling was a “relatively rare phenomenon” until racetracks, lotteries, and casinos became legal across 48 states.
Today’s gambling landscape is vastly larger. Americans in 30 states can gamble money away at their fingertips on sports betting smartphone apps or websites, according to a tracker maintained by the Legal Sports Report.
Studies have shown that high-risk factors for developing gambling addictions mirror the vast majority of the military population: young men between 18 and 29, inclination to take risks, and lives that include stress, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. A 2021 Rutgers University Study found that service members were twice as likely to develop a gambling disorder. A 2020 review of existing studies found that veterans have higher rates of gambling disorder compared with civilian populations.
The fact that Fanduel and BetMGM are calling for more research into gambling disorders may raise some eyebrows, but industry players have efforts dedicated to “responsible gaming” — a similar concept to the casino industry’s “responsible gambling” practice which is based on the idea that there are safe and healthy ways to do it without going overboard. In 2023, DraftKings announced funding for the 50x4Vets program from the Kindbridge Research Institute — the only organization dedicated to studying gambling disorders in the military population.
Issues with existing data
“We don’t have anything that even offers something remotely that looks like a smoking gun, that this is a huge issue,” said Mark Lucia, a program manager at Kindbridge. “So what can you do? You can look at the things that you know are issues and look at what they point to, and to me, they kind of consistently point to the same sorts of things.”
Lucia, a former 10th Special Forces Group soldier, said that in addition to demographic and lifestyle factors, he believes the cultural inclinations and behaviors of young men in the military also show the potential for higher rates of gambling addiction.
“You are a risk taker. You’re competitive. It lines up perfectly. Now you’ve created apps that are addictive,” Lucia said. “I knew a guy who told me he would play somewhere in the ballpark of 30 hours of World of Warcraft on weekends. … Is it that hard to believe that you swap out his computer and keyboard with a phone and a sports book that it’s going to be any different at all?”
The Department of Defense’s 2018 survey of troop health behaviors found the prevalence of problem gambling across the active duty population was approximately 1.6%, mostly among enlisted men. The 2002 survey found an even smaller 1.2% prevalence rates.
As directed by Congress, the DoD added a question to screen for gambling disorder in its annual health assessment screening. After collecting data for a year, the department found a gambling disorder affected nearly 6 in every 10,000 troops.
Nathan Smith, director of research at Kindbridge said the finding of 0.06% prevalence was “an incomprehensibly silly number” and that, compared to general population rates, they just don’t make sense. According to the NCPG, among all U.S. adults — most of whom are not young men, as in the military — 2.5 million, or 1%, are estimated to meet the criteria for a severe gambling problem each year and another 5 to 8 million, 2-3%, have mild or moderate gambling problems.
“We believe gambling disorder to be ~3-4x higher in the military than the civilian population,” Lucia wrote in email. “The DoD numbers from annual screeners to be about 1/100th of the prevalence rate we believe to be true.”
“The reason why they get this number is because they asked people: Do you have a gambling problem? And if you say yes, then you’re going to lose your career,” Smith said, touching on a common enough theme in the military where some service members self-censor during mental health surveys due to fears over how their answers will impact their careers.
How the services handle gambling
The Uniformed Code of Military Justice does not ban gambling, with the exception of gambling with a subordinate. Most disciplinary actions related to gambling arise when a service member has unpaid rent or car payments, said Dave Yeager, a former soldier who now counsels troops dealing with the issue at Kindbridge Behavioral Health.
“Nine times out of 10, what’s happening is they’re being brought in for financial counseling because they haven’t paid a bill or you know something’s come up financially,” Yeager said. “Most financial institutions know if you’re dealing with active duty that if they report it back to the command, you’re gonna get counsel and you’re gonna end up paying that bill so that’s how a lot of that gets reported back.”
A January 2017 Government Accountability Office report recommended that the branches “explicitly include gambling disorder” in substance abuse policies because without it, the services could not provide appropriate treatment, mitigation or prevention measures.
“Because there’s no good treatments, then nobody will talk about it. Because nobody will talk about it, then when we study it, nobody says they have it and when nobody says they have it, then they won’t do a treatment,” Smith said. “It’s this trail of denial.”
The Department of Defense has since included screening questions on gambling problems in Periodic Health Assessments, but concerns around limited privacy over mental health disclosures and the impact on military careers likely mean that troops’ answers are not fully reflective of the problem.
The Army’s substance abuse program regulation lists gambling disorder under “crimes against society” along with prostitution, weapons violations and vagrancy as data that commanders are required to report each month. The Navy and Marine Corps’ substance abuse policies include five sentences on gambling disorder and the Air Force has stated that it will not treat gambling disorder the same as substance abuse.
Yeager spent 11 years in the Army before he was given a general discharge under honorable conditions for issues related to his gambling addiction. He was based in South Korea right after 9/11. Stressed and unable to fall asleep, Yeager discovered slot machines at the hotel on base. Over the next year, he said the problem escalated, giving excuses to his wife to send him more money, selling all of his belongings, borrowing money from subordinates and stealing equipment and money from his unit.
Yeager said his gambling addiction led to four suicide attempts, a fairly common story among veterans. An analysis of veterans who went through the gambling treatment program at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Ohio found that 40% had attempted suicide.
“It was right for them to let me out of the military. I did damage. I was a non-commissioned officer who didn’t live up to what I was wearing on my collar,” Yeager said. “I just wish there had been more conversation around, ‘hey, this is a disease, and even though we can’t help you right here, right now, go get help.’”
UPDATE: 7/7/2025; This article has been updated to specify the DoD estimate of gambling in the military that Nathan Smith was commenting on and adds comment from Mark Lucia on that data.
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