Casinos weigh smoke bans
Report on how pandemic has changed habits of gamblers says they’re ready to move on
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — For decades, it was accepted wisdom in the casino industry that eliminating smoking would automatically lead to revenue declines and customer losses.
But a new report examining how the coronavirus pandemic has changed gamblers’ habits says that may no longer be the case.
The report issued Friday by Las Vegasbased C3 Gaming comes as several states, including New Jersey, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, are considering banning smoking in casinos. The research firm says its report was done independently and was not financed by any outside party.
It notes that the pandemic changed several key aspects of the casino experience, including the elimination of daily housekeeping in many places, closing of buffets and an end to room service — all of which customers have gotten used to.
It suggests smoking will be the next such change to be accepted.
“The pandemic altered consumer expectations and consumer behavior in virtually every industry, including retail, entertainment, lodging, dining and casino gaming. One of those changes (is) in attitudes towards smoking in casinos,” the report’s three authors wrote.
“Data from multiple jurisdictions clearly indicates that banning smoking no longer causes a dramatic drop in gaming revenue,” it read. “In fact, non-smoking properties appear to be performing better than their counterparts that continue to allow smoking.”
The report looks at casinos’ performance in numerous states since the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020, and finds that “those casinos that implemented smoking prohibitions did not experience any drop in revenues or lost market share to nearby casinos that continued to offer smoking environments.”
The authors also interviewed tribal casino executives, who said profitability was starting to increase due to lower maintenance costs, adding that 157 tribes were able to end smoking in their casinos “without economic cost.”
The authors also predicted that smokers will not abandon Atlantic City casinos in droves if New Jersey bans smoking there, noting that due to smoking bans in Connecticut and New York, and a smokefree policy at Rivers Casino Philadelphia, gamblers from New York, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania would have only four options that offered smoking.
The report is the latest in a back-andforth over whether there is evidence that smoking can be eliminated without harming casinos’ bottom line. It also takes aim at a report commissioned recently by New Jersey’s casinos predicting huge revenue and job losses if a ban were implemented.
The stakes are high, particularly in New Jersey, where the main casino workers’ union is threatening a strike in July if new contracts providing big raises are not reached before then.
Gamblers in the northeastern U.S. interviewed by The Associated Press expressed strong support for smoke-free casinos.
“Smokers will say that they aren’t going to go gamble any more if they ban smoking,” said Linda Quinn of Montvale, New Jersey. “They said this when they made restaurants and bars non-smoking and it didn’t affect them at all.”