US Military has slot machines on overseas bases

If memory serves, a 5 cent slot would pay $37.50 for the jackpot, which on the particular machine I played once in a while consisted of 3 watermelons.

But, I do agree they shouldn't be in military bases. Much too easy I think for soliders, airmen, navy or marine personnel to waste their money.

NCO club in Okinawa 1969. Put a few nickles in and won enough for my buddies and me to get wasted on .25 "Singapore Slings". At the time it was cheap fun. Nothing compared to what you could lose in some of the barracks poker games.

Frenchman

You brought back quite a memory about the barracks poker games! We'd have a master sheet of everyone that played and often times passed it on from shift to shift. Everything was payday stakes, and God help you if you didn't pony up your losses on payday! Some guys lost well over $100 (big money then), just playing dimes and quarters with plastic chips of different colors. We were just PFCs and some Spec 4s and 5s, with most of us making less than $100 a month. I think my base pay then was $76 a month!

I'll never forget the boat ride to get there! 18.5 days on the USNS Mann from Oakland, CA. The best part was going under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fran...after that, it kinda went downhill fast. Was fortunate to fly home, but, then again, I was in a Data Processing Unit that generated the "flight and boat" roster back to the states. We all flew home, as did many of our friends. It was so simple to change a "one" in column 51 (IBM card days) from a "zero". Zeros took the boat home, ones flew.

How we survived the smell of kimchi is amazing. We had Korean cooks who began cooking that stuff towards the end of our breakfast. You never ate late!

There might be a good book on the history of gambling in the armed forces. Seems like the two things have a symbiotic history of development.

Played it once just for kicks in between fire missions. I ended up the big winner, wiping out 5 guys of all they had. Game was "pass the deal and call your own", but mostly 5 and 7 card stud.

Then I accidently ventured into a Texas Holdem game, run by one of our lieutenants. First time I ever saw the game, but poker is poker,
right? Not! I didn't know what I was doing, had no clue as to good, bad or marginal 2 card rankings, position play, etc. I quickly lost all I had won in the other game plus a bundle more. I never played the game again, even though it was quite a regular gig. I knew when I was taken, and vowed never to play Texas Holdem again unless I had thoroughly studied it beforehand.

Also, first slot machines I saw were at Da Nang. I played it just to pass the time. When it came time to cash out, the Vietnamese cashier tried to short change me. When I corrected her, she just sullenly handed over the correct amount. Afterwards, I learned that that was a common occurence with the local cashiers.

Neko

Right you are Wildcard, future paychecks often were lost in these (friendly?) games. Sometimes (in the Corp) the interest payments on un-paid gambling debts could be as extreme as a "blanket party", and you still would owe the principal. Not quite like todays backoff's.

I have heard about "kimchi" from friends who served in Korea. They said the smell was so bad, it made maggots sick to their stomach.

Thank goodness I did not have to take a ship over or back from my oversea duty. Being part of the Navy, I would have spent that trip with a bunch of horny Sailors. Just not my cup of tea ;-)

Frenchman

I'd say craps (a diluted version), and mostly poker are well entrenched in the military. I cannot recall any base or place I've been in the U.S. Military where barracks poker or poker at someone's home didn't exist. I can only speak for the Army, of which I spent 10 years, but I suspect all branches of service had poker games galore.

True story...I was once playing at my bosses home (a Lieutenant Colonel), I was a First Lieutenant, we were playing 7-card stud. I caught my 4th nine on the last card, only to lose to his 4 aces! This in a 6 hand game. Better I lost to him than the reverse. He had pocket aces, and only one up...he caught his 4th ace on the last card.

I recall playing poker for hours upon hours on end some weekends. Took a nap and played some more. The military can stick you in some very boring places. In Vietnam, there were base restrictions and there was simply not much else to do. I was fortunate to spend my last few months in Saigon...during my last night there, a fire fight broke out just outside our BOQ, we all hit the floor, not a chip was missing nor a drink spilled. Just a few shots were fired, but it does get your attention.

Drink, gamble, f**k, kill.

1) Drink - when you could get some hootch
2) Gamble - if you had any chits
3) F**k - if paying, pay no more than a pack of smokes
4) Kill - hopefully, never or not often

Right?

Frenchman

About 20 years ago my wife and I went to England to visit a friend of hers. Her husband was in the USAF and stationed in England at the time. I remember him taking us to his base and showing us the slot machines there, so I wasn't surprised when I saw this article in the paper.

EE

I wonder what Rick would think. Probably wouldn't like the competition. :-)

"blanket parties" were threatened for failure to pay up on pay day, not a day longer. We were a pretty tight group with few problems during the Korean days. I did have a guy in the bunk under me who for whatever reason didn't like to take a shower. After about 4 days, I got out a GI brush and threatened to make him bleed in the shower, along with a major kicked ass...he got the message and the hygiene (along with the odor) improved substantially.

The boat ride to Korea from California was one of those things in life that are truly seared into your memory. We went from Oakland, CA to Honolulu. Along with us were several dependents who were housed in the top decks of the ship, they were going to Honolulu. Needless to say, there were a few hotties that tantalized the hell out of us and rumor had it that a couple of guys scored in life boats of all things! If you recall the scene in Cool Hand Luke, where the hottie chick was washing her car with soap all over her...it was much like that.

Somehow I got selected to use a grinder to chip paint off a wall. Rubber glove, mask and this heavy grinder. I did that for a few hours, then put the gear down and disappeared, never got caught. The temps in the middle of the Pacific in July can be brutal.

After Honolulu we trudged on to Yokohama where we hit the edge of a typhoon. The ship rocked and rolled and the waves were like scenes out of old Victory at Sea movies. We just hung on, with people getting sick left and right. Eating can be left to the imagination...disgusting!

Inchon harbor in Korea is too shallow for the big ship, so we had to load up in those LST landing boats. A file of these boats were going in with the new guys and a bunch going out with folks going home. I will never forget one outgoing boat that had a pretty good group of women (we assumed nurses), who just stood ther with a thumbs down as we passed by. Crazy times for a 19 year old kid then.

As others have pointed out, gambling in the military has been around for a long time. There is, however, a dark side to it that few people consider.

Civilians aren't the only ones to suffer from problem gambling, but they (civilians) are indeed fortunate, in the aspect that there are programs (both private and public) that are designed to help them stop the addiction.

The military, OTOH, seems to look the other way when one of its own needs help.

I found this article in a Google search, link below. It appears that the problem gambler receives little, if any, help from the military to overcome his or her gambling addiction. If anything, it seems that the military actively tries to discourage personnel from seeking help. Hey, the military enjoys the profit from slots, in the same manner that the casinos do, don't kid yourself, they have a vested interest in keeping the ploppies playing (and losing) when they should be helping them.

Really a shame, when you stop and think about it.

Regards,
drumz1

This is a true story. It didn't happen to me, so it is technically hearsay, but my barracks friend in the 1/13th Armored Battalion, 1st Armored Division, who had gone thru tank training at Fort Knox when I had, related it and I don't doubt it.

In August of 1967 PFC Ford was at an inter-divisional softball game at Fort Hood (where there was close to nothing to do off-duty, except play pool and get inebriated) between the first and second armored divisions.

As he sat sat in the bleachers, a kid of maybe ten years of age approached him.

Kid: "Gimme a dollar."

Ford: "Why should I give you a dollar?"

Kid: "My dad's a major and all GIs are trash. Gimme a dollar."

And that, my friends, is what they really think of the people who wear rank upon their sleeves and that is what they teach their children.