Yeager had never seen a slot machine on a military base before – there were none in the United States – but he thought that trying his luck could not worsen things. “While I’m sitting there, the first thing I’m noticing is that my shoulders relax,” Remember Yeager. “Then, I won. At that moment, all stress, anxiety, pain, fear: it has swept away.”
Pulling the levers of the slot machine looked like a save until they did it. Yeager found another room full of slot machines at its next base. For a period of about three months, he turned spiral into what he says was a “devastating obsession” in playing casino games to manage soldiers. In the end he emptied his savings, he sold his things, he even stolen from his unity. He didn’t tell anyone what was going on. “I thought nobody could help me,” he says.
Although not all those who play the slots fight as Yeager did, a growing evidence indicates that veterans and service members are more likely to fight with gambling disorders than civilians, says Shane W. Kraus, associated professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies gambling disorders. Service members also tend to be more hesitant to seek help, for fear of losing rank, space for safety or being dishonorably discharged, adds.
Not much has changed since Yeager has served, in fact, over the past five years, the slot machines programs that military races have made an increasing number of money. And, say some supporters, they are not channeling enough of what they transform into education for problem gambling.
Drawn into debt
The army program for the recreational machine (Armp) currently manages 1,889 slot machines in 79 offices abroad, including Korea, Japan and Germany, according to Neil Gumbs, general manager, installation management command (AMCP) of the Army Recreation Machine Program (Imcom). Arsp brought $ 70.9 million from its slot machines operations during the tax year of 2024, according to a document obtained by Wired. That year, the scrp gained $ 53 million in net proceeds. (The Armp program covers the slots on the basis of the army, the Navy and the Marine Corps, while the Air Force also has its own version of the program.)
Those figures increased. In the tax year 2023, the ASCP led to $ 64.8 million revenue, with $ 48.9 million of net proceeds. The previous year, he earned $ 63.1 million income with net proceeds of $ 47.3 million, according to the documents obtained through a request for public registers made by this journalist through the data release project.
From October 2024 to May 2025, the “House” of the Armp had some solid victories. They generated about $ 47.7 million from the players at that time, the records obtained from the wired show. Comparally, the total return to players from October 2024 to May 2025 was approximately $ 37 million in Jackpot to report over $ 1,200.
In its period of maximum splendor, the scrp brought over $ 100 million revenue, for A 2017 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO)But Money-in has substantially reduced between 2010 and 2020, which Gumbs attributed to the “movement and reductions in force and installations”. Things have started to grow again after 2020. This was partly a push by boredom Covid-19, together with “renewed investments in new equipment and cost/expenses reductions helped to increase the entertainment on offer”, says Gumbs.