Gambling addiction on the front line: How it undermines combat effectiveness
An infantryman lost everything he had earned during three months on the front line — 460,000 hryvnias — gambling at online casinos. When he ran out of money, he put his body armor up for sale and then pawned his assault rifle. Thanks to his commander’s intervention, the weapon was recovered. But now, the addicted infantryman no longer has access to his own bank card, and his comrades have nailed his phone to a tree. Frontliner reports on how gambling addiction is being tackled on the front line — illegally, but effectively.
They’re rushing helmets and tactical goggles to
the pawnshop just to afford energy drinks,
It is difficult to spot gambling addiction among combat soldiers. Service-related anxiety, regular expenses for their families, and personal needs can all obscure the fact that money earned with blood is being gambled away in just a few hours. For these soldiers, betting becomes just another way to unwind, much like drinking alcohol or visiting “massage parlors.” The key distinction, says a company commander with the call sign “Shpak,” lies in the speed at which earnings are lost and how rapidly the addiction spreads through the unit. Once it takes hold, overcoming it is virtually impossible — even after treatment, the risk of relapse remains.
“We get it. Some guys go see girls and spend 10 to 15 thousand in one go, but once they realize what they’ve done, they don’t spend that kind of money anymore. That’s a lot of money to spend at once. But with betting, it all starts with 10, 20, or 100 hryvnias. The guys don’t even notice such small amounts until they suddenly have to ‘win back’ 20 to 30 thousand hryvnias. Then they think: ‘Oh, I’ll just drop 10k right now to make it back quickly.’ The bet fails. A few more times like that, and they’re rushing helmets and tactical goggles to the pawnshop just to afford energy drinks,” the commander explains.
There are three gambling addicts in the company commanded by “Shpak.” It all started with a volunteer who joined the military straight from prison, where he was serving time for theft. Having earned no more than minimum wage his entire life, he completely lost his head when over 100,000 hryvnias in combat pay hit his card. He spent 400,000 hryvnias over his six months of service before his fellow soldiers noticed it. By the time they realized what was going on, two more soldiers had already become gamblers as well.
When the first assault rifle went to the pawnshop
I had to step in very harshly,
All three were infantrymen and spent several months on the front line, receiving food and water by drones. Their positions were relatively remote, so they faced neither close combat nor enemy drone attacks. According to “Shpak,” the only major restriction was social isolation and boredom. This is likely what pushed the men to gamble.
“They’re all grown men, but they used to work odd jobs and had never seen big money. They are like children. So it all started with: ‘You’re just doing it wrong,’ or ‘Let me show you.’ I didn’t even notice it, thinking they were just playing games on their phones. But when all three started borrowing money from the entire platoon, I finally saw what was happening. I warned them that the punishment for gambling is exactly the same as for getting drunk. They swore to me they weren’t losing money because they were just spinning virtual coins. But when the first assault rifle went to the pawnshop because they had no money left to buy those coins, I had to step in very harshly,” the company commander says.
Gambling can undermine a unit’s combat effectiveness
A platoon commander on the Kupiansk front with the call sign “Hrem” intervened in his comrade’s gambling addiction when it began to undermine the unit’s combat effectiveness. At first, the man gambled away his salary and combat pay, and later began borrowing money from his fellow comrades. When he owed money to almost everyone and had nothing left to pay them back due to making new bets, conflicts broke out in the platoon. In February 2026, six months after the first signs of addiction were noticed, the soldier’s wife messaged “Hrem,” complaining that her husband had not received his salary and combat pay for half a year, claiming that military accountants were keeping the money for themselves.
It was an avalanche of total lies
that’s hard to even imagine:
“one day he claimed he had been fined for no reason, another that he personally bought several Mavics, and then that the accounting department said his payments were the only ones failing. His wife listened to these stories for months while living in an unfamiliar city and caring for their two sons on her own. I tried to settle the situation amicably and asked the soldier why he was lying to her. Then he lied to me as well. Eventually, I set up a three-way call, and that was the first time his wife found out about his addiction,” the platoon commander recalls.
Over the next two months, the soldier’s gambling addiction worsened: he failed to repay his debts to fellow comrades, still did not begin sending money to his family, and spent all his time outside of combat missions on his phone.
“It got to the point where before a combat mission, he wouldn’t sleep — he’d stay up playing slot games. It takes two days to reach the position, so at least get some sleep. Instead, he spent all his rest time glued to his phone. It got so bad that I actually shot one of his phones because everyone who worked with him was complaining about him. He went from being a reliable person to a zombie who couldn’t pull himself away from the slots. The guys were afraid to leave their belongings in the room with him, worrying he’d steal them or do something shady involving bank transfers,” recalls “Hrem.”
The platoon commander suspected the addiction was worsening when drones started disappearing from the unit. It became clear where they were going after a call from an adjacent unit commander, who asked if they were actually selling drones. By that time, the gambling addict had already sold three Mavics, bought a new phone, and returned to gambling away his money.
Commanders started fighting gambling addiction using “military methods”
There were no legal ways to control the situation. “Hrem” suggested to his commander and the brigade’s finance department that they stop making payments to the addict’s card and instead transfer the money to his wife or the company commander, who could give the soldier his money in small amounts. Since none of these options were legal, “Hrem” had to handle the problem himself.
“I agree that a phone is a soldier’s personal property. But when the unit’s combat effectiveness suffers because of it, and gear starts being sold off to fund the slots, I won’t allow it. The unit where everyone is supposed to have each other’s backs started falling apart because of one guy. There were no legal ways to fight it, so illegal ones were used,” the soldier notes.
Unit commanders “Shpak” and “Hrem” started by warning the gambling addicts that their phones would be taken away if the behavior continued. When it did not work, they confiscated the smartphones for one, two or even three weeks.
“He made the calls to his wife and parents right in front of me, sitting in my office. Then I would take the phone away and return it once every few days if the soldier wanted to talk to his family again. But later, he ran into some volunteers who gave him another one. As a demonstration, that phone was used as a target for demolition while we were testing new drones. That was the first time I saw a soldier on the verge of tears, begging us not to destroy the target,” recalls “Hrem.”
Nothing helped; he would wake up and
immediately log right back into that garbage.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine lack a system to combat gambling addiction
The military are convinced that the Armed Forces of Ukraine should have adopted the US military’s experience long ago: when a soldier runs up debts, the command is automatically notified. The soldier is immediately stripped of their security clearance and, along with it, a significant percentage of their pay. In Britain, gambling addiction is perceived as a threat to national security, so gambling-related debts mean immediate removal from access to classified documents and weapons.
As of May 2026, the Register of Persons Restricted from Gambling contains 16,000 individuals. Entry into the register is voluntary — gamblers themselves choose the timeframe during which they will be banned from spending money on their online addiction. This self-exclusion period, ranging from six months to three years, is also selected by the gamblers. Once their application gets into the database, licensed online casinos and bookmakers are required to deny them access to games and refuse their bets. Operators must cross-reference their users with this list, which grows by roughly 1,000 people each month. If a gambling operator ignores the restriction and allows a registered individual to place a bet, the company’s license can be revoked.
The Law of Ukraine “On State Regulation of Activities Regarding the Organization and Conduct of Gambling” provides for the inclusion of citizens in the Register by court order. However, there is no such precedent in Ukraine. Even service members, who are banned from gambling until the end of martial law, can only be added to the Register voluntarily or upon a request from relatives — and only if the gambling addiction can be proven.
According to the Law of Ukraine on gambling, a family must prove at least one of the following grounds in order to have a player restricted from gambling:
- The player’s gambling expenses exceed his or her income, putting the player or the player’s family in financial hardship.
- The player has debt obligations exceeding 100 subsistence minimums.
- The player has been evading alimony payments for more than three months.
- The player or the player’s family members receive housing subsidies or utility benefits.
There are over 34,000 unlicensed online casinos in operation, and this number is growing every month. In mid-May 2026, the Association of Ukrainian Gambling Operators published a study on the unregulated gambling sector finding that the “black market” accounted for 56.7% of Ukraine’s iGaming market by revenue. The financial volume of this illegal market exceeds 61.6 billion hryvnias.
Simple but effective steps could help regulate the gambling market, from a total ban on gambling to the introduction of platforms with controlled betting limits. However, the gambling addiction crisis among Ukrainian soldiers must be tackled immediately, before the disease undermines the nation’s defense capabilities. The situation might be improved by a mechanism developed by the government and the Ministry of Defence. According to the announcement, during registration or log-in, the system will automatically check the user against the Register of Persons Restricted from Gambling and the register of servicemen. If there are grounds for a restriction, access to the games will be blocked — at least, provided that the soldier registers under their own name and uses their own payment card.
However, the effectiveness of this mechanism can only be judged after it is implemented.
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Hi, I am Alina, the author of this article. Thank you for reading to the end.
Soldiers are losing millions of dollars gambling at online casinos — money earned with blood and sweat on the front line. This uncontrolled addiction degrades the combat effectiveness of their units: while soldiers sell personal belongings to fund their gambling, weapons and drones end up in pawnshops and domestic black markets. Addicted soldiers also risk being recruited by Russian intelligence services. Since full recovery from this chronic addiction is nearly impossible, there is always a risk of relapse. As a result, commanders are forced to fight this gambling addiction, which threatens the lives of fellow soldiers, often resorting to illegal and inhumane methods because the government has ignored the issue for years.
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