Where or when we play often depends on the health conditions in a particular casino.  Smoke is a big issue for both of us.  I am very allergic to it and it is not good for Brad’s heart problems.  We enjoy the fact that in Vegas now we can eat in a casino restaurant and it is completely smoke-free.  We applaud the trend toward non-smoking public areas all over the country and can’t wait until casinos here in Nevada are completely smoke-free.  But until then, the smoking issue is a major factor in our casino choices.

We dropped play completely at Terrible’s and Arizona Charlie’s Decatur because these casinos were so overpoweringly smoky.  Even for casinos that have better ventilation, we limit our stay there, usually one or two hours at the most.  If on rare occasions when there is an extremely valuable play and we want to spend 3 or 4 hours on it, we will take fresh-air breaks every hour or so, either outside or to a non-smoking restaurant.  We try to avoid play on Friday and Saturday evenings or whenever bigger crowds means more smoke.  We aren’t early risers, but many players find the morning air in a casino is much cleaner.  We also experiment by playing in different areas of the casino, and can sometimes find better air quality.  And when a smoker sits down beside us, we try to find another machine not in a direct stream of pollutants.

One would think that the newer casinos would have better ventilation systems, but I am always disappointed in this area.  The Cannery, even with its high ceilings, chokes us up badly.  The same thing happens at the Silverton.  The décor with lots of soft fabrics at Wynn look so luxurious, but the smoke clings to those beautiful draperies and my eyes are watering within 15 minutes.

Another health factor that can be a negative in a casino is all the food.  Buffets do tempt one to overeat and all those gourmet restaurants offer a lot of rich and unhealthy food choices.  And if you have thousands of dollars of comps for these food palaces, as we do, you have to learn moderation and self-control or your waistline and cholesterol numbers will sky rocket to unhealthy levels.  We have to continually watch ourselves here, and we find sticking mostly to buffets makes it easier for healthier food choices, as long as we don’t go back to the feeding trough too often!

However, there is one factor that might make a casino the best place to be if you want to live longer.  And this is not just my opinion, to justify our casino life style.  It comes from the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine.  They recently published a study that said that people who suffered a heart attack in a casino had a much better chance of survival than someone who had the attack in a hospital.  Why, you may ask in astonishment?  Because you will more likely receive life-saving defibrillation within the first two minutes.  We can attest to this personally.  Several years ago Brad had a heart “episode” in a Reno casino and 5 security guards were into his room with the defibrillator in less than two minutes. As it happened, this was only an A-Fib (atrial fibrillation) event and they didn’t need the machine although he was taken to the hospital by ambulance for treatment.  But we were impressed by the speed of response!

[Email Blogger]