Legal gambling age argued before Louisiana Supreme Court

Brett Martel

Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2000 | 9:36 a.m.

NEW ORLEANS - Lawmakers banned lottery and video poker for 18- to 20-year-olds because of political pressure, not because of any real evidence that gamblers under age 21 cause more harm to society than older gamblers, a lawyer told the state Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Chris Young argued the case for a Ville Plate man who claimed that raising the minimum age for such games violated the state Constitution by discriminating against people his age. The man was under 21 at the time the lawsuit was filed.

"If this court upholds this law, then you could use the same logic in arguing whether 18- to 20-year-olds should be allowed to have credit cards," Young said.

A lottery vendor and video gambling operator joined the lawsuit to lower the minimum age back to 18. State District Judge Preston Aucoin of Evangeline Parish has ruled that the law is in fact discriminatory and should be thrown out. But the state appealed Aucoin 's ruling.

The Supreme Court, which did not indicate Tuesday when it would rule, will now decide whether the minimum age for lottery and video poker statewide should remain 21 or return to 18.

Aucoin gained notoriety when he ruled, similarly, that a 1995 law raising the drinking age to 21 was discriminatory under Louisiana's Constitution, which clearly establishes 18 as the age of majority.

But state lawyers were able to overturn Aucoin's ruling by persuading the Supreme Court that 18- to 20-year-old drinkers posed a greater threat to society at large - especially in regards to drunk driving - than older drinkers.

The state cited numerous studies that showed younger drinkers were more prone to binge drinking, an exceptionally dangerous combination with their relative inexperience as drivers, the state argued successfully.

The state used the same rational to justify lowering the blood alcohol level that would define 18- to 20-yera-olds as legally drunk.

Rand Dennis, a lawyer for the state Attorney General's Office, made a similar argument Tuesday, citing a study that found 18- to 20-year-olds were three times as likely as other age groups to develop additions to gambling. The study also showed that the younger gambling addicts pour a higher percentage of their monthly income, up to 50 percent, into gambling and that they were most likely to play the lottery or video poker.

"This is not a bunch of mumbo-jumbo," Dennis said. "What we're talking about here are serious and devastating consequences. We're dealing with a lot of biological facts with the central nervous system not being developed or mature in terms of impulse control like that of older groups."

Aucoin had thrown out that study when he ruled against the state. Dennis said the study's findings were not contested by other experts and should have been considered.

Young said the study was not valid because it was the only study of its kind ever done and based on interviews with only 98 people between the age of 18 and 20.

If the law stands, Young said, "We will have a discriminatory law on the basis of ... one survey of 98 18- to 20-year-olds," he said.

Justice Harry Lemmon, who wrote the ruling that upheld the minimum drinking age, said he saw a difference with the gambling law. Where evidence clearly showed younger drivers, when drunk, posed a heightened risk to people of all ages on the roads, there was less evidence that younger gamblers posed a threat to the rest of society.

Justice Katherine Kimball also noted that Louisiana's Constitution protects 18- to 20-year-olds from discrimination "like no other state in the country."

But Justice Jeffrey Victory seemed to find some reasoning in the state's argument, asking Young, "If younger gamblers are three times as likely to be addicts, aren't many going to grow up to be older than 21 some day?"