Sunday, September 21 2008
This editorial in the
Las Vegas Review-Journal online opines on how casino smoking bans could hurt gaming establishments nationwide.
Casinos in Illinois have posted double-digit revenue declines since a smoking ban took effect there in January. And it's not primarily because high air fares stop tourists from visiting the Windy City in search of a game of chance.
"The smoking ban is having a major impact," Tom Swoik, head of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, told The Wall Street Journal last week.
A 2005 research paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis says Delaware's "racinos" -- racetracks with slot machines and video poker -- saw their revenue decline by $94 million a year after a smoking ban was implemented there in 2002.
And In Atlantic City -- where casinos are now under a partial smoking ban that keeps gamblers from lighting up on 75 percent of the casino floor -- a full ban is scheduled to go into effect Oct. 15, at which point smokers are widely expected to flee to gambling halls in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
EDITORIAL: Smoking bans and casinos
