Smoke-Free Casino Group Thinks Atlantic City Would Benefit From Tobacco Ban

A smoke-free casino group that has spent years lobbying New Jersey lawmakers to ban smoking inside Atlantic City’s nine casinos believes going tobacco-free would better prepare the resort town for the future. A video poker player celebrates a royal flush with a cigar. Atlantic City is facing uncertain times, but a coalition of workers who are against smoking thinks going smoke-free would brighten the town’s prospects. (Image: Casino.org) Last week, Casino.org reported on analysis from the Atlantic County Economic Alliance (ACEA) that included grave concerns about Atlantic City’s future. The nonprofit economic development corporation says more than 8,000 casino jobs are at risk. The ACEA cited online gambling and three downstate New York City casinos as Atlantic City’s greatest threats. Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE) thinks one move to better prepare the gaming market for the future is for the casinos to go smoke-free. If casino executives want to bring people who are choosing to stay home back to Atlantic City’s casinos, they should make the in-person experience better. Eliminate indoor smoking,” said CEASE co-founder and table game dealer Pete Naccarelli. Though casinos in New York are 100% smoke-free, casinos in nearby Philadelphia, a major feeder market for Atlantic City, can similarly designate supposedly smoke-free gaming sections. However, because the law in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania does not require the smoke-free sections to be physically separated from the smoking areas, critics say patrons everywhere on the floor are exposed to dangerous secondhand smoke. Bipartisan Bills Stalled In 2022 and 2023, legislation to amend the 2006 New Jersey Smoke-Free Air Act to close the tobacco exemption afforded to Atlantic City casinos had enough support in each body of the NJ Legislature. During the 2022-23 regular session, Senate Bill 264 was sponsored by 23 of the 40 state senators. Its companion bill, Assembly Bill 2151, was backed by 56 assemblypersons in the 80-member chamber. The bipartisan bills, however, never went up for a vote. The November 2023 elections, in which all 120 state Senate and Assembly seats were on the ballot, were first blamed for Democratic leaders refusing to bring the casino smoking bills to the floor. The delay allowed the casino industry to lobby lawmakers on the belief that a smoking ban would push some gaming revenue to Philadelphia and lead to thousands of job cuts. Lawmakers subsequently began exploring a compromise that would involve requiring casinos to only offer smoking in physically separated rooms with their own ventilation systems. Naccarelli called on state lawmakers to dismiss the casinos’ ongoing lobbying efforts against legislation to provide workers with smoke-free workplaces. “If the casino industry was truly concerned about visitors to their brick-and-mortar properties, let alone the well-being of its employees or the working-class communities it claims to support, there is an easy step it can take,” Naccarelli said. Casino Claims In response to the 2022 legislative support in Trenton, the Casino Association of New Jersey commissioned Spectrum Gaming, one of the most respected research firms in the US gaming industry, to analyze the impact of a smoking ban. The study found that a full smoking ban would result in a nearly 11% decline in brick-and-mortar gross gaming revenue in the first year after implementation. The casino win drop-off would lead to as much as $44 million in reduced gaming taxes and as many as 2,500 job losses, Spectrum said. However, during a 2025 casino smoking webinar, Dr. Geoff Atkinson, a senior marketing research manager at Management Science Associates, a Spectrum affiliate, said, “It is not at all obvious that smoking or being smoke-free is a great advantage or hindrance.” The post Smoke-Free Casino Group Thinks Atlantic City Would Benefit From Tobacco Ban appeared first on Casino.org.