Several Las Vegas casinos have begun limiting smoking to try to keep customers from removing their face masks.
Facial coverings have been required wear at table games since mid-June by order of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. They’re now required in all public places, including casinos, under an order from Governor Steve Sisolak’s office that was issued June 24 to help contain a statewide resurgence of Covid-19.
Las Vegas Sands was one of the first operators in the market to address the smoking issue. The company’s two Strip resorts, The Venetian and Palazzo, have been asking gamblers and spectators at the tables not to smoke or vape since the Control Board’s order went into effect.
Wynn Resorts has since followed with a policy designating tables without protective plastic barriers as non-smoking.
The state’s casinos were permitted to reopen on June 4 under guidelines from the state that left facial coverings as a voluntary option, and reports emerged immediately that customers were ignoring the request in large numbers and refusing to practice social distancing and other basic safety measures.
Some experts say smoking poses a special danger because smokers they’re putting their fingers to their mouths and then touching gambling and other surfaces. Smoking or secondhand smoke can also lead to coughing, which can spread the infection. Then there’s the fact that current or former cigarette smokers are at greater risk of severe illness from the virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As Brian Labus, an epidemiologist with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Public Health and a member of the governor’s medical advisory team, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “If you smoke, you can’t follow the mask guidance. We want people to wear masks all the time. Casinos are a difficult place to social distance since you’re around other people a lot. It’s important to keep the mask on so if you’re asymptomatic you don’t spread (the virus) to other people.”
Not surprisingly, as infections have soared across Nevada the last several weeks, particularly in and around Las Vegas, calls are increasing for an outright ban on smoking in the casinos, as New Jersey has done in Atlantic City.
So far, however, state officials have refused, and among gaming operators the policies vary widely.
Caesars Entertainment has not updated its smoking rules except to advise guests to lower their masks when smoking then lift it back into place when they’re done.
A spokesman for MGM Resorts International said guests are allowed to smoke, as long as “proper protocols are in place.” The company has designated certain table games and slot areas as non-smoking and requires players at certain tables to move six feet away to smoke.
Sahara Las Vegas also asks players to step away from the games to smoke.
