Proposal to lower legal gambling age gets cold reception from gaming industry – News3LV

LAS VEGAS (KSNV News3LV)

Ever since Las Vegas legalized gambling in '31, you've had to be 21 to place a bet.

86 years later, the assemblyman in the cowboy hat says, I think if you're old enough to go to Afghanistan, or Yemen, or Iraq and fight - if you're old enough to drink in some states - if you're old enough to vote - then you ought to be old enough to gamble, if that's what you want to do, says Jim Wheeler, a Republican who represents Minden, NV.

Wheeler's bill was one of a flurry introduced on Monday, the first day of the session.

Nationwide, while a few states allow 18-year-olds to gamble in a casino.

Most set the legal age at 21.

Wheeler admits his bill could cause complications. If gambling becomes legal at 18, our legal drinking age is still 21.

So it's going to make it a little tougher on the cocktail servers, for instance, to check ID's. But the fact is they're supposed to be checking anyway, Wheeler says.

The Assemblyman says hes open to feedback.

News 3 received some on Wednesday from Nevada's gaming industry.

"We are not aware of any compelling benefits from doing this, yet there are uncertain risks. Absent a clear policy rationale, we are opposed," says Virginia Valentine, President of the Nevada Resort Association.

Wheeler says he introduced the bill to start the discussion. Well, the fact is in this business you actually have to put a bill out before you get comments on it, he told me.

He also says if the proposal has negative consequences, he wants to hear about those, too, especially from those who treat problem gambling.

"I definitely think this could lead to more problems as far as problem gambling, Nick Tangeman, Clinical Director at Center Youth Services, told me. Tangeman works with young people fighting issues with addiction. Those are very formative years for a teenager. Developmentally, the teenage brain is primed for addition, he says.

I just have a little concern we'd be making available to a risk-taking group of people a new risk activity, that most of them would handle but some would not do well with, says Dr. Robert Hunter, the founder of Las Vegas Problem Gambling Center.

For his part, Wheeler is going into this eyes open.

This bill very well may not go anywhere, he says.

The idea was floated in 2008 as a way to attract new gamblers to help Nevada ride out what was a growing recession.

It went nowhere.

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Proposal to lower legal gambling age gets cold reception from gaming industry - News3LV