Casino Smoking Ban Potentially A Big Issue In New Jersey Gubernatorial Election Year

Any casino operator weighing whether to ban smoking in their casino knows two things for certain: Some longtime regulars who are smokers will reduce or even eliminate the number of visits, and some gamblers who despise cigarette smoke will increase their number of visits.

But the ultimate question — will that casino wind up with a net gain or loss of revenue from the change in policy? — remains a topic of debate.

Still, the momentum seems to be toward banning smoking in casinos — spurred by temporary bans during the COVID-19 pandemic that proved to be more popular than expected, and with more and more casinos in the U.S. taking the plunge even without bans imposed by state legislatures.

But is the concept seen as a political winner in New Jersey? We may find out within the next two weeks.

What the candidates are saying

This month, primary voters in New Jersey — one of only two states in the country (along with Virginia) that holds a race for governor in this “off-year” for statewide elections — chose Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli as their respective candidates.

It’s a race between non-incumbents that is widely expected to be close. Ciattarelli lost to then-incumbent and now term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy by only three points in 2021, rather than the seven-point margin that multiple reputable polls had predicted, and as of Monday morning, prediction market Kalshi had shares of the Democrat candidate priced at 80 cents and the Republican at 21 cents, suggesting a competitive race even if there is currently a clear favorite.

Certainly, it looks close enough it’s conceivable their respective stances on eliminating smoking in casinos could be impactful at the ballot box.

Sherrill has come out strongly in favor of a casino smoking ban, while Ciattarelli has been noncommittal.

“It is unacceptable to force working families to make a choice between earning their paycheck and protecting their health, particularly given that we know lung cancer is the top cause of cancer deaths in New Jersey,” Sherrill said.

“Jack believes this decision should be left up to the employers and the employee unions,” said Ciattarelli campaign spokesman Chris Russell. “At the end of the day, if there are employees who don’t want to work in the smoking section, it’s at that point in time the casinos will have to address it. Jack will continue to keep an open mind and he looks forward to further conversations with all the stakeholders.”

A majority of members of the state Assembly — which, unlike the state Senate, has its seats up for reelection this November — already have signed on as co-sponsors of a casino smoking ban bill. The state’s fiscal year ends on June 30, at which point the entire legislature traditionally takes two months off assuming a budget is signed at that point.

If internal polling shows widespread popularity for the ban — which would align casinos with every other indoor business in the state — then the Democrats, with a robust 52-28 advantage in the Assembly, could immediately hold a vote and presumably pass the bill. If the state Senate concurs, then the bill would go to Murphy’s desk — and Murphy indicated more than a year ago that he would sign such a bill into law.

While there so far are no public suggestions of such a bold move, it would not leave Ciattarelli enough time to plausibly change his stance to matching support for a ban. 

But if the issue is set aside for the summer, Ciattarelli would have an opportunity to pivot in the smoking ban direction if he chooses.

Conflicting evidence of impact of a ban

While a smoking ban, which would apply to all nine of Atlantic City’s casinos, has widespread support in the statehouse in Trenton, conflicting research and polling clouds the issue.

A Spectrum Gaming Group study in 2021 concluded that anywhere from 1,000 to 2,500 jobs could be lost if a city-wide casino smoking ban was imposed on Atlantic City, with a concurrent 11% loss of casino industry revenue. Smoking ban advocates last month tried to seize on recent new findings by the same company that found that “the impact of eliminating patron smoking on casino floors, whether by legislation or voluntarily, has lessened over time.”

But a Spectrum official responded that the earlier report was specific to the Atlantic City regional market, while last month’s observations were about the industry as a whole. The study was commissioned by the Casino Association of New Jersey.

“Unlike other recent situations involving voluntary smoking-cessation policies by individual casinos, a smoking ban in Atlantic City would affect an entire jurisdiction — one that competes directly with neighboring Pennsylvania, which allows players to smoke,” said Spectrum Executive Vice President Joseph Weinert. “We found that in this scenario, Atlantic City casinos would experience revenue declines.”

Any suggestion of possible job losses for any reason hits home for many South Jersey residents. Four casinos of what was then the city’s 12-casino market shuttered in 2014, with another closing in 2016. That sent shock waves through the local economy, to the point where on several occasions, national data revealed that Atlantic County had the highest home foreclosure rates in the country.

This April, a poll commissioned by Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids found that 83% of South Jersey respondents favor a city-wide casino smoking ban, with 79% saying they would be more likely to visit a casino if smoking were banned indoors.

If New Jersey Democratic Party internal polling has found anything close to those numbers, it would stand to reason that a push for a statehouse vote could come quickly.

While the poll that was bankrolled by two anti-smoking advocacy groups may raise eyebrows based on the lopsidedness of the results, it is worth noting that the venerable Gallup poll found 41% of respondents in 1944 said they were smokers. In 2004, only 25% said the same. Several recent national polls have found that current smoking rates are 11% to 12%.

Las Vegas-based C3 Gaming issued a report in 2022 that concluded that casinos that continued what had been a temporary ban on smoking during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic did not experience a loss of market share to rival casinos that later reactivated their smoking areas.

Statewide smoking bans in New York and Connecticut, casino smoking advocates have asserted, help lure gamblers instead to Atlantic City. New York state regulators are scheduled to approve three New York City-area casino licenses by the end of this calendar year, but residents in those areas who want to smoke while they gamble may continue to patronize Atlantic City casinos in spite of a driving distance of two hours or more.