It's certainly to be expected that casinos are perhaps the single
most-affected businesses when smoking bans take effect. That's
because smokers are ideal casino customers--personally weak,
especially in resisting addictive behavior; self-indulgent, and
indifferent to societal norms. In other words, the perfect target.
Smokers will gamble longer, less skillfully (because of the constant
attention they are paying to their cigarettes), and at worse casino
games than nonsmokers. They will lose more, play a losing game
longer, and continue to play it badly, without making any effort to
improve--the hallmark of an addictive, narcissistic, self-deluding
personality, when exposed to gambling.
So it isn't surprising that casinos lose revenue when they lose
those people. But the question is, is this a temporary loss? Is this
compensated for (eventually) by increased business from people who
now find the casino environment more pleasant, and will patronize
those establishments when then might not have before?
Also, should the overall benefit to people's health be considered
from a monetary point of view? Certainly, "x" number of people are
now NOT going to die/get sick when they would have without a smoking
ban--both customers and employees. Is this worth the loss of
revenue, especially if that loss is temporary?
And what is the economic value of people being able to patronize a
casino without simply being annoyed and irritated by cigarette
smoke? It's real, but how can you quantify it?
The experiment might best be tried by a single Vegas casino going
nonsmoking and comparing its revenue stream over some longish period-
-say, a year. This would only be valid if said casino were already
successful; a few Nevada casinos have gone nonsmoking, but these
were desperate attempts to revive dying establishments. I'd like to
see what would happen if, say Sunset Station or AZ Chuckie's West
(one of the stinkiest casinos in all Christendom) had the guts to go
nonsmoking. I would predict that patronage and revenue would, after
an initial downturn, skyrocket.
