Question of the Day - 01 December 2017

Coincidentally, there was an effort to do just that in the last legislative session.

Assemblyman Jim Wheeler introduced a bill to lower Nevada’s legal-gambling age to 18, arguing that “if you’re old enough to serve our country in foreign lands … you’re old enough to come to Las Vegas or Reno or Lake Tahoe and have a good time.”

However, the bill, in the words of a staunch opponent, was “DOA from the start.” An effort to lower the minimum gambling age in Nevada, introduced in 2008, was summarily dismissed.

Had it been successful, Wheeler’s bill would have made Nevada the fifth state where 18 is the gambling age, along with Alaska, Idaho, Minnesota, and Wyoming (all at tribal casinos). 

Other states allow 18-year-olds to gamble in some ways, but not others. In 10 states, for example, the age at which people can legally place pari-mutuel bets, most commonly associated with horse racing, is 18. Six states allow 18-year-olds to play bingo (two of those, Florida and New Mexico, are among the 10 that also allow pari-mutuel wagering).  

In California, New York, and Oklahoma, 18-year-olds can gamble in some casinos, but not others.

For Nevada casinos, unless the legislature also dropped the drinking age from 21 to 18 (no small feat), cocktail servers would have to card everyone who requests an alcoholic beverage, a state of affairs certain to rile casinos and patrons alike. Even Wheeler was against dropping the drinking age. 

There’s also the open question of whether it would be worth the hassle: How much discretionary income would 18- to 20-year-olds have to gamble with anyway?

Jim Wheeler was acting as a lone wolf, not a spokesman for the casino industry. “We’ve never supported it in the past. There’s really no compelling reason to change that position,” Nevada Resort Association President Virginia Valentine told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

"The industry … is happy with 21 years of age,” added Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman Tony Alamo.

MGM Resorts International certainly is. “We would only be supportive if concerns about problem gambling could be addressed with peer-reviewed scientific research. There has been some work indicating that problem-gambling prevalence rates are higher among younger people, but there really hasn’t been a definitive study of the differences between say 18-21 (as opposed to younger adolescents.) Until there is a consensus among the problem-gambling community, we would be opposed,” says MGM spokesman Alan Feldman.

His opposite number at Boyd Gaming, David Strow, was like-minded. “We oppose it for a number of reasons. One of the most significant issues is that it would create a discrepancy with the legal drinking age – creating a confusing situation where a guest could gamble at our properties, but not order alcoholic beverages.”

Considering that the Wheeler bill would have confused, rather than clarified, those issues, and that the industry is mostly against the change, it’s no surprise that it was doomed.