People search this constantly, and the answers floating around are almost entirely guesswork. Forum chatter, anecdotes, one person's memory of a bad night in Tucson.
So rather than add to the guesses, it is worth going after real data. And it exists, in a place most searches never look.
One company has been quietly tracking this at enormous scale for years. Not by watching what people search for, but by watching what actually gets scanned at the door and flagged, across the entire country.
That distinction matters. Search volume tells you what people are curious about. Scan data tells you what actually showed up at a bar, a dispensary, or a casino, and what happened when it did. Here is what the numbers say.
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The Company Sitting on the Real Data
IDScan.net runs ID scanning and age verification software used by bars, dispensaries, retailers, and casinos nationwide. Every scan through their system becomes a data point.
In their most recent annual report, they scanned more than 130 million physical IDs across their platform. Not a survey. Not a projection. 130 million actual scans, with a minimum of 600,000 scanned per state, everywhere in the country.
Out of all of that, they flagged and identified more than 1 million as fake. That number is the real denominator behind everything that follows.
It is worth pausing on the sample size, because it is the reason this data beats anything the search engines can tell you. Search interest measures curiosity. This measures outcomes.
Which States Show Up Most, and Which Barely Show Up at All
Here is the actual ranking, straight from the report.
| Group | States | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Most flagged | Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, South Carolina | Held their top-five positions from the prior year |
| New entry | Washington D.C. | Moved up into the fourth spot |
| Biggest drop | Ohio | Number one in 2022, now out of the top five entirely, with flagged Ohio IDs down 50 percent |
| Least flagged | Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Missouri, Iowa | Massachusetts holds 50th, the lowest rate in the country |
| Fastest rising | Nevada, Mississippi | Numbers roughly tripled between 2022 and 2023 |
Two things stand out. The first is that three of the five lowest states are in New England, which is a regional pattern rather than a coincidence.
The second is that this list moves. Ohio went from first to nowhere. Nevada and Mississippi tripled. Whatever you read about state rankings two years ago is probably describing a different list than the current one.
The Timing Matters as Much as the Location
Location is only half the picture. When matters just as much, and this is where the report gets genuinely specific.
Across all business types, April and September were the highest-risk months overall, with winter running considerably lower. Break it down by venue type and the picture gets much more textured.
Bars and nightclubs peak in summer, but the pattern shifts by region. New York City spikes in June and stays elevated all summer. Florida and Louisiana climb steadily and spike in early August. California and Nevada start around July 4th but do not peak until early September, which lines up neatly with when the school year actually begins out there.
Dispensaries are their own story entirely. April is the clear peak, spiking hard on 4/20 specifically, with a noticeable hangover effect the following day. February and March run at roughly a third of April's volume.
Irish bars and pubs spike around St. Patrick's Day and Halloween. Casinos vary by market: July and October for Las Vegas properties, January through early April for everywhere else.
None of that is random. It is demand tracking almost perfectly with the calendar events that push people toward wanting one in the first place.
The Part That Surprised Me Most
Here is a number I genuinely did not expect going in.
The report found that only 0.1 percent of all scanned IDs at age-restricted businesses were underage individuals attempting to use their own, legitimate ID.
Meaning the popular image of a minor handing over their real license and hoping the bouncer does not check the birthdate closely turns out to be a rare event. Almost nobody tries that.
The bigger issue, by an enormous margin, is fabricated or altered documents. That is a meaningfully different problem from the one most people picture when they think about underage access, and it explains why venues invest in scanners rather than just training staff to read dates carefully.
Where the Fakes Actually Get Used, Geographically
The report also breaks down risk by venue location rather than by which state issued the ID being copied.
Tourist markets see roughly double the activity of non-tourist areas. Bars in New York, Nashville, Las Vegas, and Florida's major metro areas are flagged as consistent hot spots, driven by high volumes of out-of-town visitors moving through in short windows.
College bars carry their own separate risk profile. Some locations near major universities see rates as high as 10 to 15 percent year round, dropping off predictably over summer and holidays when students head home.
Put those two findings together and you get the practical version of the state rankings. Where an ID gets used matters at least as much as which state is printed on it.
What Happens When a Business Gets It Wrong
This part rarely gets attention, and it should, because it explains why enforcement keeps getting stricter.
One widely cited case involved a South Carolina convenience store chain fined 15 million dollars after alcohol purchased with a borrowed ID was linked to a fatal boating accident.
That is not the only example. A Tennessee bar lost its liquor license after serving a minor who later crashed his vehicle. A Connecticut lounge was fined 9,000 dollars for serving underage college students. A Seattle bar near a university lost its license entirely after serving more than 20 minors. Businesses across several states have faced suspensions ranging from a few days to several months.
Several states have raised penalties specifically in response. Louisiana's SB168 increased first-time fines from 50 dollars to 1,000 dollars and now mandates ID scanning for repeat violators. Ohio raised fines for underage tobacco sales to 10,000 dollars with a 180-day license loss after three offenses.
Every one of those penalties lands on the venue, which is exactly why the person at the door has more riding on the check than the person handing over the card does.
Why the Technology Side Matters Just as Much as the Geography
The report's other major finding is about how fakes are actually being caught, or missed.
According to IDScan.net's own testing, their software detects up to 95 percent of fakes when using full authentication. That means ultraviolet and infrared analysis, barcode verification, and front-to-back cross matching, not just a visual glance under a bar light.
They also tested a newer category directly. AI-generated ID images, the kind used for online account verification rather than physical printing, were flagged as fraudulent 90 percent of the time in testing. Still high, but a meaningfully different number, which tells you that category is a distinct and still-evolving challenge.
For context on how the underlying documents keep changing, the AAMVA card design standard is what every state builds against, and it gets revised on its own schedule.
So What Is the Real Takeaway
The state-by-state numbers are not really about which states are somehow more vulnerable. They reflect which state IDs show up most often in one security company's detection data, gathered from deployed scanners at real venues, at large scale.
What explains the differences is less about any single state's card design and more about a mix of factors. Tourist traffic. College populations. Seasonal demand tied to specific dates. And increasingly, how good the verification technology at the door happens to be.
The venues doing best at catching this are not relying on a bouncer's eyes. They are running layered authentication, checking the barcode, the UV markings, and the face against the photo all at once. That combination moves the needle far more than which state happens to be printed on the front.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does a state's ranking mean its license design is weak?
Not necessarily. The rankings reflect how often that state's ID appeared in flagged scans across one security company's customer base, which is influenced by tourism, college population, and regional demand at least as much as by the document's actual security features.
How accurate is modern ID scanning technology at catching fakes?
According to IDScan.net's own testing, full authentication scanning, which includes UV and infrared analysis, barcode verification, and front-to-back cross matching, detects up to 95 percent of fake physical IDs. Visual-only inspection by staff catches meaningfully fewer than that.
Are AI-generated fake IDs harder to detect than physical ones?
Somewhat, based on the same testing. AI-generated ID images, used mainly for online account verification rather than physical use, were flagged at a 90 percent rate, a few points below the physical detection rate, which suggests this is a distinct and still-developing fraud category.
What time of year sees the most activity overall?
April and September were the highest months across all business types in the report, though the exact timing varies significantly by venue. Dispensaries peak around 4/20, while bars vary by region and local school calendars.
Why do tourist areas show roughly double the rate?
Because out-of-state IDs are harder for local staff to evaluate quickly, and tourist venues process high volumes of unfamiliar documents in short windows. New York, Nashville, Las Vegas, and Florida metros are named specifically as consistent hot spots for exactly that reason.
Do these rankings change from year to year?
Considerably. Ohio held the number one position in 2022 and then dropped out of the top five entirely with a 50 percent reduction, while Nevada and Mississippi roughly tripled over the same period. Any list more than a year or two old should be treated as historical.
Final Thoughts
The reason this data is more useful than search volume is that it measures what happened rather than what people wondered about. A search reflects curiosity. A flagged scan reflects an actual outcome at an actual door.
And what those outcomes show is that geography is a weaker predictor than most people assume. The strongest predictors are the calendar, the type of venue, and whether that venue runs full authentication or just looks at the card.
Which is the same conclusion the report keeps circling back to. The technology at the door has changed far faster than the conversation about which state to pick ever did.