[MandieD]

I don’t know what it was like before I came over two decades ago, but I think you’re likely right - there are tons of little casinos and sports betting parlors in even small towns in Germany, and unless they were explicitly declared off-limits to soldiers by the post/base commander, he’d have been at one of them gambling away his paychecks, and exposed to people who would not have been likely to get on base who could have caused him even more trouble.