Poll : 28 June - 09 July 2013

Analysis

• "You wouldn't need to debate smoke-free casinos if existing hotels did a better job of purifying the air in their casinos. There's a world of difference between spending time in Caesars Palace, which does a good job of filtering out smoke, and Harrah's, where the entire building reeks of tobacco. Gambling and smoking often seem to go hand-in-hand: Casinos may designate no-smoking table games or no-smoking slot areas, but that's as useless as you-know-what on a warthog if the facilities allow the cigarette smoke to drift into the smoke-free zones."
  
  
• "I live between Harrah's Joliet (non-smoking) and Horseshoe (smoking). I love going to a smoke-free casino, but the VP and the diversity of reels isn't as good compared to the Horseshoe. So, I go to Horseshoe at 6:30 in the morning (yawn) when I want my great VP fix. I don't object to smoking, but I spent a long time kicking the habit. I don't want to be tempted to start it again :-)"
  
  
• "I smoke about 6 cigars a year and half of those I smoke in Las Vegas. Do non-smokers really want the whole country to be smoke free? Are we really ready to give up 'it's a free country' every time the majority wants to tread on the rights of the few?"
  
  
• I think smokers tend to overplay the non-smoking issue vs. big loss in sales etc. I used to be a big-time smoker, so I know what it's like to be stomped on all the time. If every casino had the same policy of no smoking, people wouldn't have a choice and would figure out ways to deal with it and over a short period, business for all would be back to normal. It happened here in Minnesota with the restaurant business, where smoking is not allowed in any restaurant and everyone complained but now every place is just as busy as before the ban took effect. People just get their smoke fix before they go in and after they come out."
  
  
• "I don't have a preference either way. In Illinois, all casinos (and any indoor public place) went smoke-free. It shifted a lot of business to Indiana, and due to the lower traffic it lowered the table limits in some casinos. The biggest plus? My spouse no longer can tell if I stopped at the casino on the way home from work."
  
  
• "Here in Ontario, Canada all of our casinos are smoke-free. It doesn't both me in the least and our casinos are always very busy. It has not hurt their business at all. Our restaurants are the same, also. I love Vegas but wish it was smoke-free, as the smell gets into your clothes and just stinks. We do go over to New York state at times to an Indian casino, but the smoke is one drawback because of the smell."
  
  
• "Yes, I would whole-heartedly patronize a non-smoking casino, but NOT at the cost of worse odds for my bets!!"
  
  
• " I answered yes, but not exclusively. I'm a table-games player and I find that most of the time I can play at a table with no one smoking. If I am looking for a table and there are two or more people smoking, I will not play at that table; if there is one smoker, it depends where they are sitting and which direction the smoke is going. I find at the tables most smokers try to be careful where the smoke is going and will blow up in the air or behind them, if possible. Quite often I have played at a table where the smoker only smokes during the shuffle and they get up from the table. Then you have the ignorant smokers, who think they are the only one at the table and blow the smoke across the table, quite often right in the dealer's face. I love it when a dealer will turn their fan around and blow it right back at the smoker, but I have only seen a few dealers do this. I would be all for a total ban on cigar smoking in the casinos: They just cause a complete stink, up to at least 10-12 feet away from where they are."
  
  
• "Though not an expert on the subject, I have to believe that the issue from place to place is very much related to the investment made in air-handling technology. I do smoke, but I've walked into places where the smoke made my eyes burn, while I've been in others where I looked around for ashtrays and other smokers before lighting up, fearing I might have stumbled into a non-smoking area. I think the engineering advances have made a huge difference, and when utilized, the problem is significantly less than it was in the past. Coupled with a little common courtesy on ALL sides, it shouldn't be a problem for most."