Robert Low, owner of the Palace Resort Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi banned smoking at the property in 2011. He said the casino lost revenue as a result soon after the policy began, but Palace has recovered from the decline.
Low said, “I want to provide our associates with a healthy environment and help them improve their health. Also, I personally love gambling and visiting casinos, but have never appreciated the way my clothes smell after a visit. Non-smokers need a place to gamble without being subjected to smoke.”
Hurricane Katrina destroyed Palace’s dockside casino in August 2005. Four months later the casino reopened inside the hotel. A major expansion, including a new gaming floor, began in 2010. That’s when Low, founder and president of Prime Trucking, said he began to consider making the new casino smoke-free. He mentioned his plan to General Manager Keith Crosby who responded, “You don’t pay me to lose 30 percent of the revenue.” Low, as an independent owner, calls the shots at his property. “No one in a public company would dare risk it. That’s what it boils down to,” Crosby said.
However, Crosby said, “Our philosophy is that you take care of the folks who work here, and they’ll take care of the guests. We stuck to our guns. He’s committed.”
Palace reimbursed employees for tips lost due to lower traffic due to the smoking ban. “Where the business could weather the impact, we were deeply concerned about the individual impact. The tip rate is a barometer of how we’re all doing. So we made some guarantees. You probably wouldn’t get most companies willing to do that,” said Crosby, a veteran of smoke-filled Atlantic City casinos.
Palace, which has an 18-hole golf course and a spa, is one of the smallest of Biloxi’s eight casinos. Crosby said its market share now is “where we felt it always should be,” but the process took three years. According to the Mississippi Gaming Commission, in March 2011, shortly before the expanded facility opened, Palace had 614 employees, including 74 in the hotel; the casino offered 773 slot machines and 15 table games. At the end of February 2017, Palace had 698 employees, including 88 in the hotel, with 862 slots and 26 table games.
Crosby said the smoke-free policy alienates certain customers. “If you carve out a pre-formed social group—it could be left-handed people—it’s going to have an impact,” he said.
He added different generations have different attitudes about smoking. “The younger person walks in the door assuming you can’t smoke, and the older person walks in assuming you can. Culturally, it’s that different,” Crosby said.
He added an advantage to going smoke-free is that furniture and fixtures stay fresher and last longer without developing “casino smell. You don’t really appreciate the impact that allowing smoking has on the facility until you don’t allow it,” Crosby said.
