By Howard Stutz
Ivan Lopez, who works as a casino porter at a Strip resort, was one of a half dozen members of Culinary Workers Local 226 who joined other Nevada union leaders last week in supporting AJR5, which would repeal the state’s 159-year-old constitutional ban on lotteries.
Proponents, including the Nevada AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, said tax revenue from lottery ticket sales should be directed toward youth mental health programs.
In backing the legislation proposed by Assemblyman Cameron “C.H.” Miller (D-North Las Vegas), Lopez told members of the Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections of his personal struggles with mental health issues growing up.
“Youth mental health is a crisis in Nevada. Something has to change,” Lopez said.
As expected, casino industry leaders banded together in opposition to legalizing a lottery, an effort that has failed in the Legislature more than two dozen times since 1887.
Nevada Resort Association President Virginia Valentine told lawmakers that state lottery revenue does not typically meet its anticipated goals. She also said a lottery would be in direct competition for gaming dollars with the casino industry, the state’s “largest single employer and a largest single source of private investment.”
Gaming industry lobbyist Nick Vassiliadis pointed out another problem with AJR5.
“Nothing in this piece of legislation actually directs any money to mental health,” Vassiliadis told lawmakers, challenging labor union leadership’s testimony. “[It] would be a misrepresentation to say that the industry stands in the way of supporting mental health.”
As with any constitutional amendment originating in the Legislature, AJR5 must pass two successive legislative sessions and then be approved by a simple majority of voters at the next general election before implementation. Miller’s proposal would have to pass the Assembly and Senate this year and in 2025 before voters could weigh in on the ballot question in 2026.
“There are [more than] hundreds of millions of dollars in the state budget right now that you guys could actually utilize to fund mental health today,” Vassiliadis told the committee. “We wouldn’t have to wait six years.”
Even if the constitutional amendment were to pass, gaming insiders suggested Nevadans wouldn’t see lottery tickets or scratch-off card sales from a Silver State retailer until 2027 or even 2028, given the amount of time needed to set up and implement rules and regulations on a potential future Nevada lottery.
Several of those questioned, however, thought the resolution will make it through the legislative session this year given the backing of the politically powerful Culinary Union and other labor groups. Still, as of Monday, the measure has yet to be scheduled for a committee vote ahead of Friday’s looming deadline for legislative measures to make it out of committee.
Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas), in what appeared to be an effort to address the mental health funding concerns, asked a Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) attorney if “enabling legislation” would allow lawmakers to preemptively set up lottery administration before the proposed measure goes to the ballot.
“As long as it’s general legislation that sets standards for a state agency to either operate the lottery, or to contract out the operation of a lottery to other entities, or to authorize the sale of lottery tickets through multistate lotteries,” said LCB general counsel Kevin Powers.
“I think there’s a responsible way to do it, and that’s why we’re starting the process,” Yeager said last month.
