Former New Jersey regulator looks for consistency in gambling age laws

Former director of NJDGE David Rebuck believes all states should restrict gambling to 21 and up

The Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey is widely considered to be the most prestigious harness racing track in the world, and visitors aged 18 to 20 regularly walk to a teller window to place a bet on a race after showing their ID.

A young person who scored with a $100 bet on a 10-1 longshot might look over at the FanDuel Sportsbook within the grounds of the track and consider using some of the winnings to bet on the NFL. Instead, they are greeted by prominent signage declaring that a sports bettor, unlike a horse racing player, must be at least age 21.

Confusing? Yes. Consistent? Hardly.

This sort of contradiction occurs all over the country.

Sports betting is restricted to ages 21 and up in a majority of the states, but is legal at age 18 in states such as Kentucky, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Casinos in general require a minimum age of 21, in part because most serve alcohol which has that same restriction.

Horse racing tends to work the opposite way, with an age 18 minimum in most states but a requirement of age 21 in Arizona, Iowa, Nevada and Texas. The same is true for daily fantasy sports and the lottery.

The conflicting age minimums for sports betting and daily fantasy sports is mainly due to so many states not classifying DFS under its gambling statutes.

Retired regulator proposes a solution

A federal law could almost immediately end the confusion, but that remedy may be years away.

Still, recently retired New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement Director David Rebuck last month wrote an essay offering suggestions on how his state might offer a blueprint for other states to follow.

Rebuck wrote that in his state, 18-year-olds can buy lottery tickets, bet on horse racing in-person and online, play daily fantasy sports and bingo, and buy raffle tickets. He recommended changing state laws to having an age 21 requirement for all forms of what he considers gambling; and not just for the sake of consistency.

“Minors 18 to 20 years old will undeniably benefit from the extra time to fully understand and prepare for any form of legal gambling engagement in the future,” Rebuck wrote. “Revising the age of majority sends a powerful message that all gambling is an adult privilege.”

Rebuck said he was encouraged that Gov. Phil Murphy this spring established a Responsible Gaming Task Force to take on gambling-related harms in the state. 

Five state government agencies currently oversee the various forms of gambling in the state, which Rebuck called “a balkanized structure of government agency oversight that has required little or no coordination or collaboration of efforts by state regulators.”

That includes a lack of consensus on how to address problem gambling services in the state, he said.

“Recommendations in response to each objective can achieve a profound impact on improving efforts to educate, inform, and protect persons from at-risk gambling behavior,” Rebuck said. “Separately, for those suffering from addiction, actions to improve the delivery of treatment, counseling, or rehabilitation services will have a tremendous impact on their recovery efforts.”

Rebuck conceded that such sweeping reforms “won’t be easy.” Still, he said that it is urgent that daily fantasy sports oversight be transferred from the Division of Consumer Affairs to his former Division of Gaming Enforcement – which he said, requires “an extensive level of [consumer] protections.”

The ever-growing influence of smartphones on consumers of all ages is another concern, Rebuck said, calling the phones “probably the most addictive device ever made.”

“At a minimum, one immediate response would be a mandate that operators of any form of internet-based gambling deploy and implement the technological safeguards, best practices and regulations currently required by DGE of its online gambling licensees, including responsible gaming staffing and patron tracking safeguards, geolocation tracking, and advertising, know your customer, cyber security, fraud, and money laundering protections,” Rebuck concluded.

Would other states follow suit?

If Rebuck’s wishes are granted, lawmakers and regulators in countless other states would take heed of the standardization of an age 21 requirement for all gambling.

The first legal casino to debut outside of Nevada was Resorts Casino in Atlantic City in 1978. It took more than a decade for other states to follow suit, but now a majority of them have. New Jersey in 2013 became the first state to create a free-market, legal online casino gaming industry.

New Jersey’s six-year court battle with the NFL and four other sports organizations ended at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, as the justices opened the door for all states to mirror Nevada’s sports betting operations. New Jersey opened its first sportsbook in 2018, with a prohibition of wagering on college sporting events featuring New Jersey sports teams.

That ban was put in place solely to speed up the process of getting a state law passed that would lure the sports leagues into suing the state in federal court, with the expectation that the state would prevail. Yet lawmakers in eight other states, perhaps unaware of the unique politics in New Jersey that led to that restriction, followed New Jersey’s lead and enacted the same ban.

That suggests that a gambling age legalization standard also could be “copycatted” in a number of other states as well.

“Our State is well positioned to lead the nation in achieving best in-kind responsible gambling practices for all forms of legal and regulated gambling,” Rebuck said.