I've been furious ever since I saw this story this afternoon.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/11/state/n113432S68.DTL&type=politics

Rather than cut a few lightbulbs, they want teen gamblers. Many 18 year olds aren't living on their own yet, and haven't earned enough paychecks of their own to understand what they're risking when they play.

If you agree that 18 is too young, and Nevada needs to find another way to cover revenue needs, then help get the word out about a plan to convince Nevada that 18 year old gamblers are not welcome in their establishments.

If you can think of other strategies to help Nevada realize how costly 18 to 20.99 yr old gamblers could be to THEM (rather than the rest of us forking the bill for financially disabled people who lost their financial sanity before they earned a steady paycheck 10 years down the road), add them here - let's get some really good ideas going.

1. Adults who like to go to Vegas - get them to imagine what it would be like trading cards with a cocky, then agonizing drama queen teenager. Have them imagine the 65 yr old guys leering at the teeniebopper girls - gross-out city. Encourage those adults to let their favorite resort in Vegas know that they won't be coming to pay and play any more if Nevada lowers the gambling age.

2. Real estate agents belong to major corporations like Coldwell Banker, RE/MAX, Century 21, Keller Williams or even the biggie - National Association of Realtors - let them know they will not be participating in any conventions or conferences held in Las Vegas. Other companies who consider annual conferences or conventions' locations - Vegas is on the outs with their predatory revenue enhancement practices.

3. Write to your favorite Vegas or Reno resort and let them know that they can no longer count on your vacation plans - unless they pressure the state to say no to teen gamblers.

Please help Nevada see that AIG corporate big-wigs are not good role models for money management. A more fiscally responsible approach for Nevada State Government and Nevada Tourism would be to unscrew a few lightbulbs on those signs, and other ways that good corporations weather a rough economy.

For me, this goes down the same path as the legal drinking age.

18 year olds are considered adults for the purpose of going to war, getting married, voting, going to prison, etc.

It makes no sense (to me) to place restrictions on "adults" under 21 years of age.

Either we must stop treating 18 year olds like children or we must start treating them as adults, with all the privileges, rights responsibilities and consequences that comes with.

Or...change "adult" status to 21 across the board. Three years of "your old enough for this but not that" is BS.

My husband and I go to Oklahoma occassionally to the Indian casinos. 18-yr olds have been able to gamble for awhile there. It's really weird seeing some of the kids walking around who look like they belong in the 9th grade. :crosseyedcrazy:

Both my kids (19 & 22) voted the first time this past election.

When I told them I was not allowed to vote until I was 21 years old their mouths dropped open ~~~>

The voting/going to war makes logical sense, because being sent to war is being called to duty - and there should be representation.

representation = voting rights

However, drinking/gambling are not nor ever will be a duty that requires representation.

Drinking/gambling (smoking and porn too for that matter) are vices .... and it is appropriate to set maturity guidelines in order to imbibe in vices.... guidelines that do not necessarily require representation.

this is my opinion, of course

I totally agree.

Pep - thank you for making these distinctions.

Here's the kind of evaluative thinking - looking down the road that we have not been taught in school how to do - if we have the skill it's because we learned it somewhere else.

That evaluative thinking asks the question: If we walk down this road, then what?

What are the logical consequences of this choice?

Nevada powers that be should be asking these questions, instead of the short term, how do we get more money to solve this immediate problem without thinking of the long term effects.

If... then....

Of course it takes a moral and social consciousness to go down this path with any kind of accurate forecasting.

If teens and those still of college age are encouraged to gamble, then...

I would forecast that some will drop a couple quarters, a few bills, have some fun and be fine...

I will also forecast that a percentage of those teens wind up in real trouble - teens, who, given 3 more years to mature would make different choices... And of those, a percentage would have become addicted anyway, but now there are more addicted to gambling than would have been had they been given another three years... then those teens, hounded by creditors for mistakes made when they should have been getting themselves established in the workforce or in college and graduate programs are now relegated to those most impoverished, becoming an ADULT SIZED burden on their parents and society, instead of the financial costs associated with raising a child to adulthood.

Those parents, like the weakened beams on the World Trade Center Towers, collapse under the added weight of extending their work time, finding themselves trying to maintain jobs and hoping against hope that their job doesn't go away because finding a job when you're 55 or 60 or 70 is not as easy as when you're 25 and have the world ahead of you. Those parents now become a burden on society - AARP then sings the sad song to Congress who can do nothing but throw money at a problem... when at the root of the problem is addiction that could have been prevented.

It's easy to say that gambling is allowed at 18 in other areas but let's look at the economics of it. What are the rates of unemployment among those teens and the adults who started gambling when they were teens? Just take a look at the number of Native Americans who take care of their people, compared to those who are burdens to their communities?

No, gambling is not the only cause of Native American struggles. Alcohol and drugs play the biggest part of their impoverishment. Does gambling help more than it hurts?

This is how IF... THEN... analysis has to be done. I know it is difficult to completely isolate the cause and effect.

The biggest irritation on this issue for me is that there are other ways to balance a budget than expanding the exposure to vice. The simple unscrewing of 10% of the lightbulbs would not even be noticed in Vegas. But 10% less electricity consumption would increase available cash flow. Appealing to families by taking down the porn billboards off the taxicabs and major streets, and remove the handbills from the strip (let it be a safe place to take the kids) would bring more numbers to Vegas for entertainment - heck - there's Donny and Marie with a show! If they want our kids there, make it a family thing!

Nevada's power brokers show their limited intellect if all they can do is take the lives and livelihoods of a percentage of teenagers that otherwise could have been productive members of society, the same way they've taken the lives of a number of addicted adults - only if they can hit the teens, they get more hooked. They don't know how to innovate or think out of the box they've painted themselves into...

And they obviously can't think for the long term social good.