State appealing ruling allowing 18-year-olds to gamble

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana 18-year-olds should have the right to play video poker and buy lottery tickets, a Louisiana state judge has ruled.

The Times-Picayune newspaper reported that state Judge Preston Aucoin ruled in favor of a 20-year-old who challenged Louisiana's law that establishes 21 as the minimum age for gambling. Aucoin said he would issue an injunction barring state authorities from arresting underage gamblers.

"If a 20-year-old can enter the voting machine and turn the key to vote for governor of the state, or have to crouch in a muddy, bloody, freezing foxhole and pull the trigger of his war weapon ... then he can insert a dollar and engage the mechanism of a video poker machine," Aucoin wrote in his 10-page opinion.

The Louisiana Attorney General's office plans to immediately appeal Aucoin's decision to the state supreme court, a move that would prevent Aucoin's order from taking effect until the issue can be heard.

In March, Aucoin issued a similar order, but that order was only in effect one day before an appellate court struck Aucoin's order down, ruling that he did not have jurisdiction in the case. The judge has repeatedly ruled that 18- to 20-year-olds have identical rights to older adults under the state constitution.

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