online craps casinos

New Englanders Prefer Smoke-Free Casinos, Survey Says

Posted on April 18th, 2011

News Sponsored by Go Casino

Rated 5 Stars by crapsonline.com

Read Review

Visit Casino

Download Software

————————————————

The result of a new survey in New England is turning conventional wisdom on smoking bans in public places on its head. Until very recently, most casinos blamed a combination of the weak economy and the strengthening of anti-smoking laws in public places as the primary reason for their earning malaise. If this were to be believed, then apparently New Englanders are the odd man out. The survey results were released Friday and it indicates that New Englanders would rather go to resort casinos with imposed public smoking bans compared to those that would allow smoking. Said Clyde Barrow, the director for the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, this is challenging long held views about the interaction that smoking bans have with gambling revenues. For the first time, there’s a demographic that actually finds smoking bans a preferable situation for casino owners.

The survey tabbed more than 4,000 residents from the East Coast spread across six states in the area. Of those that participated, more than half said they have actively gambled in the past year and said they were more amenable to the idea of visiting casino where smoking is banned on the gambling floor than those that do not. Of the remaining 50 percent of respondents, only 15 percent said they prefer casinos where smoking is allowed while the remaining 35 percent say it does not matter. Further narrowing down the respondents to those who said they have actually been inside a casino with the last 12 months, 53 percent reiterated their stance that they prefer casinos that ban smoking. The breakdown is actually start, showing that among women which is the general majority comprising slot machine players on New England casinos, 57 percent affirmed the preference for smoking bans.

The survey was conducted as part of the Center for Policy Analysis’ biennial study on New England Gaming Behavior, said Barrow, who also noted how the results reflect an affirmation of the measure proposed by Massachusetts law makers in the middle of last year when they sought to keep the cigarettes off the gaming floors. That expanded gambling bill would have actually cut the floor space area where smoking is allowed to 75 percent of the original but it failed following fierce opposition by casino operators. Still, Barrow expects that a version of the smoking ban will most likely find itself in a provision among the many bills that the legislature eventually considers this year.

Other states have already moved ahead with the proposal implementing full smoking bans from casino floors. In Connecticut for example, the Foxwoods Resort Casino and the Mohegan Sun ban smoking from many large areas of the gaming floor as stipulated in agreements signed between then Governor M. Jodi Rell and casino officials. The agreement was actually a proactive measure that allowed tribe owners the Mohegans and Mashantucket Pequots to implement progressive bans instead of comprehensive bans that some legislators and health enthusiasts were seeking. Adds Barrow, casinos should not waste their time following misguided strategies on fighting smoking bans when their target markets are actually amenable to the arrangement.

The results were merely a reflection of a fact already known among many East coast observers: majority of the population are non-smokers and as a natural consequence would prefer locales that banned smoking. This conclusion comes from a 2008 study that showed an overwhelming 85 percent of New Englanders do not smoke. The study was ran by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and limited the number of Massachusetts smokers to only 16.1 percent of the adult population; in Connecticut, that number drops to 15.9 percent while Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine report slightly higher numbers at 17.4, 17.1, and 18.2 percent respectively.

“The smoking-in-casinos debate has been colored by the notion that serious gamblers tend to be smokers, and that a smoking ban is a sure way to drive them out of a casino. “ Brrow adds. Barrow expects the results of the survey to help re-shape mindsets towards smoking bans as well as aid legislation that could make these changes permanent. That would allow legislators to focus on other more critical issues pertaining to the gambling industry than just fending off unnecessary resistance from casino owners.