Las Vegas Strip Casinos Face Added Pressure to Ban a Popular Vice

Few people go to Las Vegas to have a nice, clean, healthy vacation where they pass on rich foods, alcohol, and other vices. In general, you book a Las Vegas Strip vacation (or business trip) to let your hair down a bit and indulge more than you do at home.

The city has been dubbed "Sin City" because a Vegas vacation allows people to indulge in ways they may not at home.

A visit to the Las Vegas Strip allows you to indulge in any sort of food you might consider eating as well as a chance to gamble and drink your fill of alcoholic beverages. Las Vegas also has its share of adult content, and while prostitution is technically illegal in the city, that's not a rule that's readily enforced.

Cannabis is also legal in Nevada and while smoking marijuana remains a little tricky, consumption lounges are coming which will solve that problem. Las Vegas has day clubs, nightclubs, strip clubs, and any other club that offers vice and indulgence.

Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, with one exception, still allow people to smoke indoors, something that's not allowed in almost any other building in the United States. There has been pressure recently from casino workers to end the practice, and now, a leading figure in Atlantic City -- the Las Vegas of the East Coast -- has said that the end of smoking is inevitable.

Fewer Casinos Allow Smoking     

While smoking remains legal in Las Vegas casinos, it has been increasingly outlawed in other states. Twenty states have made smoking illegal and both major Connecticut Native American-run casinos -- Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun -- have gotten rid of smoking either by law or choice in their casinos.

Las Vegas has not followed, but Caesars Entertainment (CZR) - Get Free Report and MGM Resorts International (MGM) - Get Free Report have made efforts to cut down where people can smoke on their properties. MGM has made its Park MGM property smoke-free while its newly-acquired Cosmopolitan has banned smoking on the property except on the casino floor. 

Resorts World Las Vegas, a new property on the north Strip, has also banned smoking except for specific parts of the casino floor.

It's a growing trend that accelerated when the covid pandemic forced casinos to temporarily ban all smoking to mitigate the spread of the virus. Those rules were rolled back along with other covid measures, but while casino operators argue that a smoking ban would hurt revenue, an independent study done by Las Vegas-based C3 Gaming suggests that may not be true, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

“As a nation, we have seen a cultural shift away from smoking with fewer Americans than ever smoking cigarettes,” Amanda Belarmino, an assistant professor at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, told the paper. “I think the trend of increased nonsmoking space will continue,” she said. “It can help casinos attract employees who don’t want to be exposed to secondhand smoke as well as guests. I think we may see a time when only a handful of casinos allow smoking in designated areas.”

Atlantic City Leader Sees a Smoking Ban as Inevitable  

While Las Vegas workers have pushed for a smoking ban, the movement has generally been small. Now, pressure has been mounting in Atlantic City where Mark Giannantonio, the new president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, told the New York Times he recognized that ending smoking was most likely a matter of when not if.

“There is a time for this, at some point,” Giannantonio said. “It’s just not the right time.”

Nicole Vitola, a dealer at Atlantic City’s Borgata casino, founded a group Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects, or CEASE, that has taken its cause to Las Vegas.

So far, the group has not made a major impact in Atlantic City or Las Vegas, but momentum is growing.

“As a nation, we have seen a cultural shift away from smoking with fewer Americans than ever smoking cigarettes,” Amanda Belarmino, an assistant professor at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Belarmino does not expect a ban in Las Vegas any time soon, but she does see the rules continuing to evolve.

“I think the trend of increased nonsmoking space will continue,” she said. “It can help casinos attract employees who don’t want to be exposed to secondhand smoke as well as guests. I think we may see a time when only a handful of casinos allow smoking in designated areas.”