Ukraine War Day #772: Gamblers – Part II

Dear Readers:

Continuing with our discussion of the gambling plague that appears to be endemic in the Ukrainian army. My starting point is this piece from the Ukrainian newspaper STRANA.

We saw that the Ukrainian officers are shocked to discover that gambling is going on in their unit, but helpless to put a stop to it. The soldiers are spending their own salaries, and those borrowed from their comrades, to run up debts; while their wives and families at home are wondering why hubby never sent the money for the rent and groceries.

A staff sergeant named Yaroslav Ch. explained to the reporter: “The longer the war goes on, the more the men want to be distracted from what is going on around them, they want to simply forget about everything. And the best distraction of all is the internet. This is why, when we get any free moment at all, we are all buried into our phones and diving into the internet. Some men are dating over the internet, other are obsessed with the mobile apps.

“After a couple of weeks at the front line, the soldiers are running on pure adrenaline. Gradually you get used to the adrenaline, and then when you’re resting in the rear, you start to burn out. This is why it is less interesting to just play [ordinary] games [yalensis: I think he means just playing some innocuous video games without making money bets], the boys are still in fighting mode. Those who have been in combat and then sent back for R&R know what I am talking about, they need something to take the edge off. This is why the commanders shut their eyes to the “igro-mania” [yalensis: from the Russian word “igra” – “game”] that is going on. They don’t care what the soldiers do, so long as they are not bringing vodka with them on the rotation. Drinking just makes everything worse.”

Ukrainian army commanders report that even those of their men who, in civilian life, were never interested in gambling, have all started playing in internet casinos and bookmaker sites. Captain Igor U. who commands a company: “In the main it is the mobilized [drafted] soldiers who start to play games. Not on the front line itself, they are not into it, not that they even could, because there is no internet. But the moment their unit goes back for rotation, then they all start to use their phones place bets on the internet. It is the most widespread disease, nowadays. Some commanders don’t give a fig what the men do on their own time, just so long as they are not doing alcohol and narcotics. But other commanders such as myself: We do care about it. Because the entire morale climate of the unit depends on this. The more money the soldiers lose, the more nerve-wracking the situation. This is often why we confiscate their phones. We might give them back maybe for an hour or two a day, so they can phone home. But confiscating their phones is actually unlawful, believe it or not.

“Secondly, there is no point in confiscating their phone, since they always have a second, secret, one; with which they start playing again in secret. For all practical purposes, it is impossible to struggle against this situation in the units. I believe that a law needs to be passed forbidding all online gambling with actual money stakes, for all soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Either that, or force the owners of internet casinos and bookmaking sites to limit the access of soldiers to their applications. But I understand perfectly that this is just my personal fantasy. Because the igro-mania of the soldiers puts hundreds of millions into the pockets of these owners of the online casinos.”

In the opinion of Alexei Kruglyachenko, who is both a psychiatrist and a psychologist, soldiers are at risk for becoming compulsive gamblers due to several reasons:

“Gambling provides a supplementary source of dopamine, the hormone which provides pleasure and satisfaction. The soldier is risking his life every minute, he witnesses the deaths of his comrades on the front line. From the point of view of the soldier, what is he actually risking? He can be killed at any moment. In other words, he faces risks far more serious than the probability of losing money in a stake. His appropriate thought process goes something like this: I live for the present day, I might win a jackpot. I might also lose. Well, and what’s the difference if I lose, if I get killed anyhow? So long as I am still alive, I still have a chance of winning. And there is one other factor: In war, people become adrenaline junkies [the phrase is given in English], they become addicted to heightened levels of adrenaline. When the adrenaline levels go down, they try to bolster them with a different stimulus, in this case, by gambling.”