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Nevada lowering gambling age to 18?

There’s a story that spread like wildfire on the Internets today: Nevada may lower its legal age for gambling to 18.

Apparently, with the economy down the revenues at casinos are quite high enough to allow for unbridaled construction of extravagant new casinos, hotels and resorts every two weeks, so now some in the state want to allow casinos to prey on youngsters with little life experience and a little disposable income.

The rationale is that 18 year olds vote and serve in the military, so shouldn’t they be able to gamble?

I’ve been in the school of thought that it’d be OK to lower the drinking age to 18, but I don’t like this proposal to lower the gambling age at all.

Imagine the hordes of high school graduates, just out of graduation, flocking to casinos for thrills on vacation and blowing what little money they probably already have. There are a lot of Americans with gambling problems, that’s true, but most gamble responsibly. I’d imagine a far lower percentage of 18-20 year olds would gamble responsibly, instead thinking they could hit up Vegas (or Wendover) and make a quick buck, only to end up losing their college fund (or worse, play on credit).

-Tyler