Smoke-free spots gain momentum at casinos

The old stereotype of a casino poker room as a dark, smoke-filled corner is dying.

A growing number of poker rooms are going smoke free in northern Nevada, and some casinos are creating other smoke-free areas, too.

But don't look for casinos to snuff out cigarettes entirely, at least not anytime soon.

Casino operators are moving cautiously, not wanting to alienate any customers.

The Atlantis led the trend in Reno this year when it converted its poker room and then its sky terrace to smokefree areas.

Others have followed, including the Reno Hilton, whose poker room went smoke free Sept.

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Harvey's Resort and Casino at Tahoe, meanwhile, banned smoking at select table games a few years ago.

More recently its poker room and sports book area went smoke free.

Atlantis marketing director Kimberly Tolkien says the casino instituted the smoke-free policies in response to guest requests.

"Since going smoke free in the poker room and sky terrace, we've had a few customers who were not that pleased," she says.

"But the positive comments far and away have outweighed the negative comments."

Smoke-free policies made sense for the poker room and sky terrace because those areas are set apart from the main floor of the casino.

The sky terrace, which features sushi and oyster bars as well as gaming machines, is the section that stretches over South Virginia Street.

It would be difficult to create effective smoke-free areas in the open part of the casino because there are no barriers to confine the smoke.

The casino instead relies on a state-of-the-art smoke extraction system to keep the air clean,Tolkien says.

Like the Atlantis, the Reno Hilton banned smoking in its poker room in response to players' requests.

"When you're in a game and someone's blowing smoke in your face, you can't just get up and move," says Steve Trounday, vice president of marketing.

Smoking has been a hot issue in the gaming industry since at least the early 1990s.

Wayne Mehl, a senior legislative analyst from the American Gaming Association in Washington D.C.

says the industry has invested in cutting-edge ventilation systems, which constantly bring in fresh air instead of recirculating the air inside, and casinos are gradually introducing non-smoking areas.

But the solutions have to make financial sense.

Mehl says efforts by a few casinos several years ago to ban smoking all together produced disastrous results.

People just took their money elsewhere, and revenue plummeted.

Banning smoking in selected areas doesn't always work, either.

Sundar Pillai, executive director of operations at the Golden Phoenix in Reno, says his casino doesn't have the volume to effectively cut smoking at select table games.

Banning smoking in other sections of the casino is difficult because the revenue per gaming unit tends to be lower in non-smoking areas than in smoking sections, he says.

And there is no research to tell casino operators which games non-smokers are most likely to play.

The gaming industry changes faster than the computer industry, Pillai says, with new games introduced faster than research can be conducted.

Some casinos are just too small to consider smoke-free policies.

"Personally I'd love to do it," says Clark Russell, owner of the Carson Station Hotel Casino and Pinon Plaza Casino Resort in Carson City.

"But I have to be realistic.

Every time we visit this issue we come to the same conclusion."

Russell, though, has had success in banning smoking in his restaurants.

When he opened The Grill & Rotisserie at Carson Station 10 years ago, he was the first to operate a restaurant in Carson City with a completely smoke-free dining area.

"We got a lot of negative reactions, but we hung in there.

Now if we changed it (back to smoking) we'd have to close the place down."

Both the dining area and bar are smoke-free at The Steakhouse restaurant he opened 18 months ago at Pinon Plaza.

Will smoke-free policies in casinos expand? Trounday at the Reno Hilton says the smoke-free areas in casinos will catch on, but they won't take over.Many Californians drawn to northern Nevada casinos are accustomed to strict no-smoking laws.While some of them may welcome smoke-free areas here, others relish the freedom to light up Nevada.

"In the long run, you'll see a mixture of smoking and non-smoking areas," he says.