Question of the Day - 27 April 2006

In recent times, poker has experienced a surprising and radical shift away from the clichéd old image of dodgy back rooms and smoky saloons. Today, the answer to your question is: Not many poker rooms allow smoking and no poker rooms on the Strip allow it.

Here's the current list of poker rooms in Las Vegas that do allow smoking:

• Arizona Charlie’s, Decatur: "We’re known for our smoking," commented the representative we spoke with. But cigarettes only -– no pipes or cigars.
• Boulder Station: Yes, but cigarettes only.
• Buffalo Bill’s: One smoking table is usually open, but if other players complain, they'll make the whole room non-smoking, so we wouldn't recommend traveling all the way out there to play if being able to smoke at the table is important to your enjoyment of the game.
• Cannery: In theory there's a smoking section, but it's only open if demand dictates.
• Club Fortune (Henderson): This was the only room we came across that freely permits cigar and pipe smoking, as well as cigarettes.
• El Cortez: Cigarette smoking is permitted, but not in the two chairs on either side of the dealer, which must remain non-smoking.
• Fiesta Henderson and Fiesta Rancho: Both allow cigarette smoking, but like the El Cortez, not in the chairs on either side of the dealer.
• Nevada Palace: Has no ring games, but does permit cigarette smoking at its daily tournament. Pipe and cigar smoking is allowed at the discretion of management.
• Palms: Recently converted its high-limit poker room into a smoking room, making it the only casino we know of that has a poker room dedicated to smokers. The other poker room here is non-smoking.
• Poker Palace: Permits cigarette smoking, but no pipes or cigars.

  For further details about these rooms and all the non-smoking rooms in town, click here to visit our full list of non-smoking Las Vegas poker rooms.