ReviewJournal.com - Opinion - EDITORIAL: Smoking bans and casinos

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Sep. 22, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Smoking bans and casinos

Prohibition hurting many gaming establishments across the country

Casinos in Illinois have posted double-digit revenue declines since a smoking ban took effect there in January. And it's not primarily because high air fares stop tourists from visiting the Windy City in search of a game of chance.

"The smoking ban is having a major impact," Tom Swoik, head of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, told The Wall Street Journal last week.

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A 2005 research paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis says Delaware's "racinos" -- racetracks with slot machines and video poker -- saw their revenue decline by $94 million a year after a smoking ban was implemented there in 2002.

And In Atlantic City -- where casinos are now under a partial smoking ban that keeps gamblers from lighting up on 75 percent of the casino floor -- a full ban is scheduled to go into effect Oct. 15, at which point smokers are widely expected to flee to gambling halls in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

But the places gamblers can go to escape the smoking bans are narrowing. Efforts to extend existing smoking bans are now expected in Iowa, Missouri and Nevada. Pennsylvania casinos instituted a closely watched partial smoking ban last week. And it turns out misery loves company: To create a level playing field, the Casino Association of New Jersey -- which unsuccessfully fought the Atlantic City ban -- is now arguing in favor of smoking bans in other states. In an e-mail statement, the association's president, Joseph Corbo Jr., writes: "We are hopeful that other nearby gaming jurisdictions, notably Pennsylvania and Connecticut, soon enact smoking bans."

Which should solve the problem, right? If gamblers no longer have any smoking-allowed alternatives, they'll simply have to shrug their shoulders and gamble without smoking, causing everything to even out in the end. Right?

Not necessarily.

"Gamblers like to smoke and drink while they gamble," explains Harvey Perkins, a senior vice president at Spectrum Gaming, a gambling consulting company in Linwood, N.J. "You've got three co-dependent bad behaviors that go together."

"I've never experienced gambling without smoking," says Mr. Perkins, a former casino executive who has studied the impact of smoking bans on gambling revenue in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. When the full smoking ban goes into effect in Atlantic City, he figures he'll have to interrupt his gambling to have a cigarette. And such breaks may persuade gamblers to walk away, he explains.

"The joy of playing is that you're focused on the game. All of life's hassles disappear, and the rest of the world stops for a little bit.

"But once you have to get up for the desire to have a cigarette, that's it, you're leaving the zone. You're pulled back into reality. And it's easy to walk away."

Losing a few nickel players may be no big deal. The real problem is holding onto the high rollers. "How do you tell a guy who comes in and wants to drop $150,000 at a table, how do you tell him he can't have a cigarette?" asks Frank Fantini of Fantini Research, a Delaware outfit that studies casinos.

The "perfect storm" metaphor grows a bit shopworn, but the impact of the smoking bans is hitting casinos at a time when larger economic woes -- airline flight reductions, cash-strapped consumers and the credit crisis -- have already driven down revenues from Las Vegas to Connecticut. Put it all together and gamers warned The Journal that revenue losses are now steep enough to threaten staff cuts and drastically reduce state tax revenues.

Until recently, casinos had persuaded lawmakers to exempt them from state smoking bans -- like the partial exemption won by Nevada casinos.

But the nanny-staters never stop, meaning casino executives who embraced "compromise" solutions "fed the beast" with smoking bans in restaurants and supermarkets encouraging the prohibitionists, like a "use up the clock" football defense that allows the opponent to move steadily down to your 20 yard line.

And Nevada faces a special problem, compared to the more parochial gambling locales. Many of this town's high-rollers are foreigners, hailing from Asian or Latin American nations where smoking is still considered an acceptable legal option for adults.

Tourists used to come to Nevada from halfway 'round the world to enjoy its 24-hour "anything goes" atmosphere. The nanny-staters now want to make the Silver State about as exciting as Dayton or Omaha.

Will Nevada's casinos just shrug and go along? Or will they finally pick a line on which to stand and fight?

Nevada's smoking ban is rarely enforced. Smoking continues at plenty of Vegas bars within a biscuit's throw of tables where food is being served. Do we really need more unenforceable nanny-state edicts? Or is it time to return Nevada to the grown-ups -- before it's too late?

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Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: glenn mayeshiro wrote on September 24, 2008 09:59 PM: everybody should have a choice of weather to go into an establishment. if the place wants to ban smoking OK, if a place wants to have smoking its OK too. I would like to see which place stays open longer and makes more money. it should be left up to laws of economics, not state laws. if you don't like the smoking go somewhere else!!!!!!!! last time I checked smoking was still a legal activity 145tech wrote on September 24, 2008 11:00 AM: Great to see an editorial in a major-market newspaper finally say what needs to be said. It takes courage in this day and age to stand up and declare that choice is still important to a vast majority of Americans, smokers or otherwise. Pete Indy TERRI wrote on September 23, 2008 07:50 PM: Ed Blake, very well said! I'm a non-smoker and work in a casino that is smoking but is now enforcing no smoking at all of the restaurants. The only place you can smoke is at one of the bars or on the casino floor. I choose to work there so smoke doesnt bother me as long as people are respectful and do not blow it in my face.We also have a slot area that is non-smoking and you know what? That area is DEAD! These extremist non-smokers want the WHOLE casino, not just 1 area and thats unfair to the smokers. I agree with you also that the govt is taking away our rights. Ban smoking and what will be next?? ex gambler wrote on September 23, 2008 10:54 AM: The bottomline is the casinos supported the smoking ban as it caused gmablers who smoke to go to the casinos instead of their neighborhood bar and grill. I say, rescind the ban, force the casinos to set up more non smoking areas to gamble and allow the nieghborhood bar and grills back in the game. I am a non smoker, but I see the hypocracy in the smoking ban. Casinos will stoop to any level to take advantage of the system. Take away that advantage and rescind the smoking ban. Michelle Gervais wrote on September 23, 2008 10:03 AM: Whoever pointed to the casinos in California being successful despite a smoking ban. Please do your research carefully. It is the tribal casinos that do not ban smoking that are holding their own despite economic woes in general www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080819/NEWS/808190345 The non-tribal casinos that have smoking bans are still not seeing "normal revenues" seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/285627_muckleshoot19.html Talk about selfish non-smokers. They would rather see businesses go bankrupt and people out of a job than allow others to live as they please. Michelle Ed Blake wrote on September 23, 2008 09:56 AM: I do not now nor have I ever smoked, my choice, if I did not like smoking in a place, I simply would not go. If I had spent millions of dollars to build a place of business, I should have the right to conduct my business as I see fit, if I wanted to let my customers smoke it should be my decision, and if someone did not want to come to my business because I allow smoking, that would be their choice. If an employee came to work at my business he/she would have know that there is smoking and deal with it, not take the position, then complain and try and force no smoking because they claim it is bad for their health, get a job where there is no smoking! What is so hard about that? I hate to have another law enacted that chips away at my right as an American, I served this country six years three months and twenty days in the United State Air Force (1959 to 1965) for the rights of all Americans, I have seen the laws slowly erode our freedoms from seat belt laws to smoking bans, taxing everything from the cradle to the grave and beyond. I am an adult and I think that I know right from wrong, I know that are people that have to be taken by the hand to be shown what should and should not be done, but I do not think that we should put another law in place, to protect the idiots of this nation. All decisions on how we live are being made for us, and not by us. “This Perfect World”. Scott wrote on September 23, 2008 08:52 AM: Honestly, who argues that smoking in a public place is a good thing? Does science and millions of deaths mean nothing. Has thie "Newspaper" become the schill of the Tobacco companies? Do some research and find out what some newspapers had to say about the equal rights movement in the 1960's. Did the Las Vegas Review-Journal support South Africa in its oppression of the majority of the population? How can an intelligent person argue that smoking does no harm? Did the paper research the Surgeon Generals reports on smoking caused deaths and the cost to tax payers for that? Did they consider the number of people who don't go to a casino becasue it allows smoking? Maybe casinos will have to market to the larger part of the population who don't smoke....that would be a good thing...they have more money and live longer. Dear Editor, At least consider the health of the society you market to. Mike wrote on September 23, 2008 06:58 AM: Nevada's 2006 smoking ban was written to keep the big money casinos out of the battle and make passage more likely. They always planned to come back to include the casinos. Since it only passed with 56% of the vote, if MGM, Caesars and the other companies had opposed it, it's passage would have been in doubt. I am sure smoking will eventually be banned in Las Vegas casinos -- MGM's spokesman has said as much -- but I doubt the casinos in Nevada will roll over for it anytime soon. Tom Lapradew wrote on September 22, 2008 08:34 PM: A smoking ban means it is against the law to use or permit a legal product on 'private' property. Is this the Amercican way?? There is absolutely no danger from second-hand smoke. In fact smoke from tobacco is a statistically insignificant health risk. When you think about these laws they all consist of: Quarantine/isolate the smoker. De-normalize smoking. That's it in a nut shell http://smokersclubinc.com http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com InDemand wrote on September 22, 2008 08:30 PM: Turn it over to the grown ups. Grow up. NO SMOKING! Smoking is for kids. I was a smoker, but quit. I now go to casinos that have no smoking in other states. Good Luck with this. Read All Comments