No Smoking at Slot Machines

More and more casinos and slot machine owners are banning smoking at the machines. They are finding that for all of their smoking customers that play the slot machines, they have twice as many non-smoking customers and they don’t want to breathe in the smoke while they play. Last May Ontario was one of the first to ban smoking in public places, including slot machine casinos. They have already seen a slot machine and gambling revenue drop of 10-20%, but Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp VP Karl Gagesch said that he thinks that they will be alright. "Short-term pain," Gagesch said. "Long term, we think we're going to be OK."

Casino Windsor saw a huge drop in their slot machine revenue, and had to lay off over 300 employees this summer because their clients from Michigan and New York stayed there to gamble and smoke. Delaware just passed a similar smoking ban at their three racinos and their slot machines. They have had a drop in slot machine revenue of 10-19% because of it. However, they are starting to see the slot machine revenue rebound because of the introduction of more slot machines.

Still, the slot machine casinos may be suffering some now, but groups against smoking think that they could not have made a better move. They know that eventually they will rebound from the new laws, and they will not only have more slot machine revenue, but also healthier clients that live longer. Even Nevada voted to restrict smoking around slot machines, and they pretty much let you do whatever you want over there. They voted to ban smoking at bars that serve food, as well as around slot machines in stores. The major slot machine casinos are exempt from the ruling.

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