Veteran dealer Mike Danay can’t understand why the idea of smoking in casinos is even up for discussion.
“It’s 2021, and we’re still having this conversation,” said Danay, whose asthma has worsened in 18 years of working on gaming floors where smoking is typically allowed. “I can’t imagine that there’s another industry this tone deaf.”
In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the two states where Danay has dealt table games, casinos are exempted from state laws that ban smoking in almost every other workplace or building open to the public. In the wake of the pandemic, which led to temporary casino smoking bans in those two states and elsewhere, the push to remove clean-air exemptions for casinos has gained traction.
Nationwide, at least 1,037 gaming facilities, including 154 tribal casinos, ban indoor smoking, according to the latest count by the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. On Oct. 19, the Navajo Nation Council endorsed a smoke-free policy covering all workplaces and public spaces, including the tribe’s four casinos.
Mike Danay, a dealer at Live! Philadelphia casino, with his daughter Zoe, 2
Lawmakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the two states behind only Nevada in gaming revenue, have proposed removing the casino exemption from clean-indoor-air laws. On Oct. 26, Casino Employees Against Smoking’s (harmful) Effects conducted its second Atlantic City rally in favor of smoke-free casinos. Amid the Global Gaming Expo this month in Las Vegas, the Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation sponsored a news conference featuring three dealers from Borgata Casino in Atlantic City who pleaded for the opportunity to work in a smoke-free environment, as casino office workers do. Last month, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an op-ed column by Danay, with the headline, Pa. casino worker: Stop making me breathe in secondhand smoke.
Two Pennsylvania casinos – Parx, the state’s top-grossing casino in 2019, and Mount Airy – voluntarily extended smoking bans first imposed during the COVID outbreak. Two others, Live! Philadelphia, where Danay works, and Rivers Philadelphia still have temporary smoking bans due to a mask mandate by the Philadelphia Health Department.
Parx has built a smoking patio accessible from the casino floor.
“Since smoking was allowed to return to (Pennsylvania casinos) in June, we have continued to be an indoor non-smoking facility,” said Marc Oppenheimer, chief marketing officer for the casino. “We’ve done it for the health and comfort of both our guests and team members. We have received significant positive feedback from both constituencies. And (we) have continued our strong performance and gains of market share in the region. As of now, we hope to be able to continue to remain an indoor non-smoking facility. We will as long as feedback and results stay as they have been.”
Mount Airy has two designated smoking areas, one next to the self-park entrance and the other adjoining the hotel’s porte cochere.
“The health and well-being of our team members are of paramount importance to us at Mount Airy,” said Glenn Cademartori, vice president of marketing. “As a result, we have temporarily suspended indoor smoking privileges. The feedback from our team members and guests has been overwhelmingly positive.”
The experiences of Parx and Mt. Airy contravene the conventional argument that a casino smoking ban significantly reduces revenue as well as local and state tax payments. Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board figures show that both Parx and Mt. Airy have earned more in the first nine months of this year than they did in 2019, when the state set a record high for gaming revenue. At Parx, gross revenue from on-premises slots and table games totaled $464.3 million through September, compared with $461.4 million for the same period in 2019. Mt. Airy posted $141.4 million in gross revenue from in-casino slots and table games during the first three quarters, compared with $138.7 million in 2019.
This year’s results reflect five months of COVID protocols in addition to the mask mandate and no-smoking policy, including fewer slot machines and table-game seats, reduced capacity (50 percent January through March, 75 percent in April and May), and no alcohol service on the gaming floor.
Live! Philadelphia opened in mid-January 2021, during the statewide mask mandate and no-smoking rule. Its gross revenue from in-person slots and table games totaled $158.1 million through September, state figures show. That includes about a month when smoking was allowed, between the end of the state mask mandate and the start of the city’s.
Danay, who started dealing at Live! Philadelphia because it’s closer to his home, said management’s decision to allow smoking after so many months was the final straw in his decision to speak out.
“To bring that garbage back into our casinos, when the vast majority of our players wanted it gone, it was very tone deaf,” he said.
A casino representative did not respond to a request for comment.
The Philadelphia Health Department has no time frame for lifting the mask mandate, communications director James Garrow said. “The Health Department believes that continued increases in vaccinations, paired with continued drops in case counts and hospitalizations in Philadelphia and in the region, will move us closer to a time when the mask mandate is no longer needed,” he said. “But given that much of the world is woefully under-vaccinated, the chances of a new variant that would require the reimposition of a mask mandate is a constant threat.”
Philadelphia’s clean-air ordinance forbids smoking at licensed gaming facilities within the city, but Garrow said state law pre-empts it.
Justin Moore, general manager of Rivers Philadelphia, the other casino under the city mask mandate, said smoking is permitted in designated outdoor areas and guests have complied without issue. “We will continue to defer to state and local officials with regard to the casino’s smoking policy,” he said.
Rivers Philadelphia, about a 15-minute drive from the larger and newer Live! Philadelphia, grossed $169 million in on-site slot and table game revenue during the first nine months of this year, down from $236.4 million in the first three quarters of 2019.
Danay said he continually heard from players who were upset while Live! Philadelphia briefly permitted smoking. “Players were like, ‘Oh my God, why did they bring smoking back?’ I heard it all the time.”
He said he would ask lawmakers and casino executives two simple questions about allowing smoking on the gaming floor. “How much more money do you expect to make by keeping our casinos filled with smoke? And is it worth putting employees in harm’s way?
“I don’t think it is.”
