Could Nevada casino floors go genuinely smoke-free? That’s the idea floated by Deutsche Bank analyst Andrew Zarnett. Although Nevada
voters have exempted casino floors from smoking bans, Zarnett thinks that state of affairs could change by 2016 or so, at the casino industry’s behest. He cites the example of Macao, which — mirabile dictu — is going smoke-free in October? It’s one of those “Only Nixon could go to China” moments (to borrow a famous Vulcan saying) that will increase pressure on Big Gaming by clean-air advocates. At present, there’s no better way to pick up some second-hand fumes than, say, traveling one of Palazzo‘s ludicrous “smoke-free corrdiors” — as though smoke respects an invisible line in the sky.
There’s peril in the idea, of course. Illinois‘ gaming revenues dove 21% in 2007 (a boom year elsewhere) when a smoking ban was imposed. Delaware‘s 2002 ban was followed by a 11% decline. Zarnett projects a 7.5% negative effective on Nevada casinos. The challenge for Las Vegas would be to devise a best-of-both-
worlds solution comparable to Macao’s exemption of VIP rooms from smoking bans. While the idea of gambling-free smoking rooms on the casino rooms has been floated, could the high-limit areas be sealed off in such a way as the permit continued smoking? The casinos are always looking for means of discouraging Average Joes from looking in one high-end play and this might be it.
Las Vegas is one of smokers’ last bastions of puffing away unfettered. It will be a brave casino that goes first by saying, “No, you can’t.” (But think how much more slowly that casino will depreciate from no longer having cigarette smoke baked into its walls.)
* One idea you’ll never hear Vegas casinos airing will be of subsidized flights into McCarran International Airport. Business has suffered sufficiently along Mississippi‘s Gulf Coast that the idea has gained in the Gulfport–Biloxi area. A study conducted last year concluded that public subsidies would be required, were a low-cost airline to be lured to the market.
“The flights bring in good, quality customers,” said consultant Michael Bruffey, citing a finding that airline customers into Las Vegas spend 50% more than drive-in ones do. “The flights bring in customers who stay longer. The flights bring in people who have more money to spend, not just in the casinos but everywhere else. Not only do the casinos benefit, but so do the golf courses, restaurants and other tourism businesses.”
(Beau Rivage teams with Sun Country Airlines to fly both commercial and charter passengers into Tunica and Biloxi-Gulfport from Tampa–St. Petersburg. Last year, it carried 80,000 travelers to the two gambling destinations. It has proposed teaming up with other casinos to share air service.)
The gaming industry used to subsidize into Biloxi-Gulfport by AirTran, but that lifeline was cut in 2009-10, just when it was needed most. In order to lure a new carrier, a percentage of booked seats would be guaranteed by the cities involved — an arrangement which conjures up the vision of empty seats being purchased by Biloxi-Gulfport just to keep the flights coming.
That would really surprise me if Nevada casinos went smoke free. I guess then the nightclubs would be next? The amount of money both casinos and nightclubs make are enormous in Nevada and I think this will be a very difficult law to pass.
This analyst is flat-out wrong. The same thing was said 7 years ago when the AGA stopped fighting smoking bans at a national level.
I am sure Vegas/Nevada, like other states, will eventually ban smoking.
But unless there is a huge groundswell that causes waves of tourists to stop coming due to secondhand smoke, casinos won’t ban it anytime soon. And Nevada lawmakers won’t regulate a ban like the Chinese government did.