{"id":205588,"date":"2025-10-06T20:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/205588\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T20:10:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:10:13","slug":"pentagon-needs-to-tackle-gambling-among-troops-watchdog-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/205588\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon needs to tackle gambling among troops, watchdog warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

The military could do a better job at helping service members with gambling addictions, according to a government watchdog report<\/a> released last week, as a growing body of research suggests that troops and veterans may be more susceptible to the disorder.<\/p>\n

In a 19-page finding, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that the services are inconsistent in their gambling prevention methods, and that the Department of Defense should clearly define roles and responsibilities for staff to help curb the issue.<\/p>\n

Multiple academic studies<\/a> have reported that gambling addiction is on the rise as a whole since the legalization of state-sponsored sports betting in 2018. A 2021 Rutgers University study<\/a> found that troops were at an increased risk of gambling abuse, given a young military population, the prevalence of risk-taking, stress and other factors that make it more likely for service members to develop the disorder.<\/p>\n

While the Defense Department offers treatment for troops diagnosed with a gambling disorder, officials told the GAO that the military does not have specialized care for it. Because assessments are based on self-reported cases of gambling abuse, the prevalence of the issue may be much greater, the report said.<\/p>\n

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Based on available data from the Defense Health Agency (DHA), the report found that 185 troops self-reported a gambling-related diagnosis last year. That\u2019s up about 30 percent from 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that states could authorize sports betting and since then, online and app-based sports betting has exploded in America. Experts have said that troops can easily fall into a troublesome gambling pit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are a risk taker. You\u2019re competitive. It lines up perfectly. Now you\u2019ve created apps that are addictive,\u201d Mark Lucia, a program manager at Kindbridge Research Institute, which studies gambling disorders in the military, previously told<\/a> Task & Purpose. But he added that \u201cwe don\u2019t have anything that even offers something remotely that looks like a smoking gun, that this is a huge issue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notably, the GAO report said that recreational establishments owned by the military operate slot machines around the world, with some services raking in tens of millions of dollars a year that then go back to funding recreational programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, military officials told the GAO that retirees, contractors and family members primarily use these machines, and that anecdotal evidence suggested that active duty troops were attracted to commercial gambling options, especially online.<\/p>\n

The military issued a policy in January addressing \u201cproblematic substance use and gambling disorder,\u201d but the GAO report said that it did not adequately assign oversight for its implementation or specific staff responsible for preventing, assessing, diagnosing and treating the issue.<\/p>\n

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The DHA is expected to issue the first of what will become an annual report next year, the GAO report said, which aims to track prevalence and trends among service members when it comes to gambling.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Task & Purpose previously reported that owners of sports betting apps such as FanDuel, BetMGM and DraftKings were calling for more research into gambling abuse, the latter of which announced in 2023 it would be funding research into the disorder among veterans.<\/p>\n

Experts in behavioral science acknowledged that limited treatment and reporting for this specific disorder has made it difficult to study. The GAO report said that DHA survey response rates for gambling disorders were less than five percent. On top of that, service members must receive a diagnosis of a gambling disorder to receive care, which is likely a tall order in an organization that has long struggled to overcome its stigma in seeking care for mental health issues overall.<\/p>\n

The recommendations from the GAO were directed at all of the services and generally called for them to update policy to be more in line with the recently-released DoD directive from January.<\/p>\n

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Drew F. Lawrence is an award-winning reporter and producer specializing in military and national security coverage. A graduate of George Washington University\u2019s School of Media and Public Affairs, Lawrence has also been published in Military.com, CNN, The Washington Post, Task & Purpose and The War Horse. Originally from Massachusetts, he is a proud New England sports fan and an Army veteran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The military could do a better job at helping service members with gambling addictions, according to a government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[118151,97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-205588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-adsafety","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}