Speaking to the Planning and Budget Committee in Turkey’s parliament, defense minister Yaşar Güler made a rare remark and said that the country’s young recruits are increasingly facing issues related to their gambling behavior.
Young military members are increasingly involved with gambling
Suicide has been common enough to raise an alarm for the country’s top military officer, arguing that many young conscripts who have died at their own hand had been indebted, and involved with online gambling.
These remarks come at a time when Turkish professional soccer is embroiled in its biggest scandal to date, with hundreds of referees – potentially more – and thousands of players openly engaging in gambling.
Güler argued that online transactions made it increasingly obvious that gambling is spreading among young recruits at a rate that is far from favorable. Another issue has to do with the military’s aversion to discussing the death of recruits, seeing it as a sign of weakness as a principle.
This does not universally apply to the Turkish military, as the United States’ own army has been struggling with gambling-related issues (not least because army bases around the world are decked out with slots that have been tied to gambling addiction).
In Turkey, an estimated 934 members of the armed forces have died by suicide, more than those who were KIA during official military deployment (818). Turkey is not an outlier in having top officials talk about the dangers of ignoring issues related to gambling.
A problem for the global military community
The United States is in a similar position. In August, the media website Wired reported that the US military is increasingly under pressure to address the issues about the gambling behavior of service members.
Some senior officials have started worrying whether gambling addiction impacts combat readiness, which would be seen as a major issue, but even worse than that, gambling debts make people susceptible to blackmail from foreign powers, who may use it to blackmail them.
In the meantime, the Kindbridge Research Institute has launched an initiative seeking to address the problem and raise awareness of the issue in the first place. The first step has been made – acknowledging, even begrudgingly, that there is a problem.
However, as minister Güler points out, the time to act may be now as servicemen are dying from preventable causes.