Question of the Day - 21 August 2021

This is a question we're asked a few times a year, often from new residents who come from lottery states, of which there are 44; only Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, and Utah don't have lotteries. Alaska has pull-tabs, similar to the lottery's scratchers, while Hawaii and Utah have no forms of gambling at all; Nevada is certainly conspicuous by its presence on the no-lottery list. Here's why.

When Nevada became a territory in 1861, its first articles declared any form of gambling a felony. This included lotteries, which were specifically outlawed three years later by Article 4, Section 24, of the Nevada Constitution; that was ratified by popular vote and provides that "no lottery shall be authorized by this state, nor may lottery tickets be sold." That's about as unambiguous as you can get, although previous penalties were relaxed somewhat, with convicted operators receiving mild punishments and players none at all.

Then, in 1869, the Nevada Legislature overrode the governor's veto and finally succeeded in decriminalizing certain forms of gambling, which remained legal until another wave of anti-gaming sentiment at the national level saw the practice banned in Nevada once more, in 1909.

Over the coming years, however, gambling laws relaxed, starting with the acceptance of certain social games and what were called "nickel-in-the-slot machines" that paid out drinks, cigars, and sums of less than $2. By 1919, all cities and counties throughout Nevada were licensing card rooms that permitted games such as bridge and whist, and by the the 1920s, Reno had become the state's gambling capital and home to numerous legal (plus plenty of illegal) card rooms.

The Great Depression proved to be the final arbiter in the pro/anti-gambling debate, with the need for state revenue outweighing any moral objections to see the passing of Assembly Bill 98 in 1931 that allowed for "wide-open gambling" and paved the way for the kinds of modern casinos we know now.

While lotteries had originally been outlawed under the same legislation that barred other forms of gambling, as the years passed and brick-and-mortar casinos became the norm in Nevada, those casino interests now wanted zero competition from a rival form of wagering. Hence, ironically, as Nevada became the nation's undisputed gambling capital, the one form of gaming that was often tolerated in other states remained banned, even down to the level of church raffles.

Since 1975, the Legislature has considered a lottery resolution at almost every session, with proponents making the case for how the resultant revenue could fund healthcare, or education, or numerous other under-funded necessities. Every attempt has failed, however, aside from in 1990, when Nevada voters passed a constitutional amendment that allowed charities to conduct small fundraising lotteries, and even these are required to be regulated by the Nevada Gaming Commission and Gaming Control Board.

As then President of the Nevada Resort Association, Bill Bible, put it when he testified against yet another attempt to introduce a lottery back in 2007: "We are concerned about funding this measure that will create a competitive situation where the state becomes the competitor to the state's principal industry -- gaming. There will be a drop-off in gambling and other revenues if you implement a lottery in Nevada." Or so the argument goes.

Hence, although it's been estimated that a Nevada lottery would bring in $75 million a year or more, the powerful interests rooting against such a development, which also include groups concerned with gambling addiction and other social ills, will likely keep any state lottery at bay for the foreseeable future.