Facing an October 6 deadline to be smoke-free on their main gaming floors, only 12 of Macau’s casinos and slot arcades had completed the construction of smoking lounges as of last week.
Health Bureau Director Lei Chin Ion said those venues had already been inspected and were now “undergoing administrative procedures”.
Twenty-eight other properties had submitted final requests with the bureau to establish a total of 62 smoking lounges.
The city has 35 casinos in operation and five machine gaming parlors.
The bureau has stated that it was “foreseeable that not all” gaming venues would be able to finish the construction of their lounges ahead of the ban, and that those that have not will have to be 100 percent smoke-free in all public gaming areas until their lounges are approved and operational.
VIP rooms are exempt from the ban, which also allows operators to sequester other gambling areas for smoking “that are of limited access to specific games and gamblers,” a category believed to cover areas allotted to higher-limit cash play under certain conditions.
