In Arkansas, officials at Oaklawn Racing and Gaming in Hot Springs, Southland Park Gaming and Racing in West Memphis and Saracen Casino Annex in Pine Bluff are awaiting guidance from the state before they reopen. Governor Asa Hutchinson issued an order for the venues to close on March 17 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Officials are monitoring Covid-19 cases and working with casinos to have health precautions in place before reopening. But Hutchinson said recently, “I am confident we will get there.”
In an interview, Arkansas Department of Health Secretary Nate Smith said he has concerns about reopening the casinos “just because they are particularly high-risk. They are indoors. A lot of people in a small amount of space. Often times, people with significant risk factors. Oftentimes, there is smoking going on as well, and you’ve got a lot of people touching stuff, so if you wanted to design a setting to optimize the spread of Covid-19, it would look a lot like a casino,” Smith added. He cautioned that one of the first people to die from Covid-19 had visited an Oklahoma casino and later were diagnosed with the illness.
In mid-March, soon after the first Covid-19 case was reported in Arkansas, Hutchinson asked Smith for a “draft directive eliminating table games and requiring social distancing and temperature monitoring at casinos. Then we can go further if needed.” Smith replied he was uncomfortable with those limited restrictions “from a public health perspective.” Then, on March 17, Hutchinson ordered the casino closures.
Smith noted, “There was concern that, if we shut down, people would just go across the state lines to another casino, and we’ve accomplished nothing. So it was important for us to understand what was happening with our neighboring states and I got on the phone and talked with my fellow state health officials, and we found out that Louisiana had taken action, Mississippi was planning on taking action and so it made sense for us to do something similar”
Smith extended keeping casinos closed through the of April; for now no date has been set for reopening any of them.
