Tuesday, September 09 2008
This story from
WSAZ News online reports that according to some gambling parlors, video lottery machine revenues are down in Kanawha County, West Virginia.
They claim the extended smoking ban is to blame for their declining sales.
Nancy Bulla from the West Virginia Lottery examined sales since the smoking ban went into effect.
"We have seen a dip but its not statewide and quite frankly it cannot be determined whether it's the smoking ban or whether it's the economy general," she said.
However, bar and gambling parlor owners say the smoking ban is killing their business.
To determine if there is a link between the smoking ban and declining video lottery sales, we crunched the numbers of five random video lottery parlors in the county.
Declining Video Lottery Sales Linked to Smoking Ban