Recently, a friend and I were discussing smoking in casinos. He wondered how the casinos in New Jersey have managed to fight off the anti-smoking efforts. It is an interesting question and not just in the Garden State, but also the other 12 or states that permit smoking in casinos to some degree. My friend and I have a history with the issue. In 2008, we were partners in a small casino in Cripple Creek, Colorado. That year, casinos were required to go smoke free. Our business dropped by twenty percent and never fully recovered. Regardless of the impact, we were never sorry; as ex-smokers, even back then, we knew it was better for everyone.
In the popular imagination, smoking and casinos go together, like love and marriage and a horse and carriage, right? The two have certainly gone together in my experience. After a decade as a ne’er-do-well, I returned to the United States, Nevada, and Reno. I was broke and needed a job. My cousin was a teacher and worked part-time writing keno in a local casino. He introduced me to his supervisor and I was hired.
The casino was expanding and the keno game was doubling and needed writers. I needed a job, a perfect fit. I had lived outside the United States for most of the previous ten years; everything was new and strange to me. Keno was just another of the strange things to absorb. It was intense, fast paced, exciting, and frankly fun. It also provided cigarettes. Every writer was given two packages of cigarettes per shift. The rationale was simple: If a customer wanted a cigarette, give it to him.
At that time, I smoked, just as most people did. The keno game was so busy that on weekends, a writer might write 1,000 tickets. We were too busy to smoke much, but not so the customers. On a Saturday night, there might be several hundred people smoking. Repainting the brown smoked-stained ceilings was a major annual expense. We hardly noticed. It was the way of the world at the time.
Statistically, close to half of the people in the country smoked, but practically, it seemed that everyone did. Certainly, most of my family and friends and the majority of gamblers were in the habit. If smoking had been banned in Reno when I was writing keno in the 1970s, it would have been the end of the casinos there. But of course, that did not happen. It took 40 years before the anti-smoking movement led to the law in Colorado to gain traction and it still is spinning its wheels in Nevada.
Even in the face of medical evidence and strong support for smoking bans, casinos in many jurisdictions have been successful in maintaining an exception. Even in Nevada, smoking is banned in nearly every public place, except in casinos. The argument is economic. Gamblers smoke. Another friend thinks that whatever the percentage is of people who smoke at any given time, twice that number of people smoke when gambling. A pretty good theory.
In 1975, for example, if 40 percent of the people in the country smoked, then 80 percent of the people playing keno would have been smoking. It was okay, because I had cigarettes and matches ready for anyone in need. Today, the numbers are different; only about 10 percent of Americans use cigarettes. That would mean in New Jersey, or Nevada if you will, if smoking were banned, there is a potential loss of 20 percent of the customers. More manageable than the 80 percent of 1975, but still a big number, one in five. So the resistance to banning persists.
Some rips are appearing in the fabric of resistance. In the last two weeks, reports of casinos experimenting with non-smoking areas have surfaced. The Hard Rock in Florida, the Palms in Las Vegas, the Choctaw casino in Oklahoma, and last year the Plaza in Las Vegas have tried special areas where smoking is not allowed. Most of the experiments are small, but the Seminole Hard Rock in Tampa contains 350 slot machines, a restaurant, and 240 hotel rooms. It makes one wonder if Hard Rock will do something similar in its other casinos. In a country with over 1,000 casinos, four non-smoking is not many. But it is a place to start. And it is important. These casinos are making the effort, because it makes sense, not because they are being forced.
Even with 20 years to think about it, my friend and I are not convinced that we would have ever taken that step on our own. So maybe the only viable long-term solution is legislation. It is a complicated situation and for casinos it is risky. But the risk is greater for the employees inhaling the second-hand smoke.
The science is clear; the other businesses and bureaucracies in the country have already made the move. The casino industry should too. It is the responsible thing to do.
