I'll throw some anecdotal data down. I'm a military brat who grew up on bases around the country and in Germany. My dad was a gambling addict. It was not uncommon for us to spend all day at the bowling alley on base, which was where the slot machines were.

At the time, I didn't know better and just played arcade games all day. Eventually, I started to put together just how much money my dad must have put into those slot machines. Thousands, maybe most of his salary. It certainly explained why we generally had no furniture in our house compared to my friends.

So am I against slot machines on base? No. I have no doubt that if they weren't readily available in a safe/controlled environment, my dad would have still found a way to gamble. If anything, it was a forcing mechanism for him not to go overboard given the limitations of what was offered on site.

I do however wish there were programs that existed to provide offramps for people with addiction, similar to supervised injection sites for drug users. Seems to me that this could be easily funded with the proceeds.