"CDC Warns: 'Las Vegas Casinos - Smoke Remains in Your Lungs'"
Recent findings from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that smoke-free zones on casino floors still pose significant health risks.
MGM Resorts, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, announced that Park MGM—previously known as Monte Carlo before its 2018 rebranding—would reopen as a smoke-free resort. Nevada closed all commercial casinos on March 17, allowing them to reopen in early June 2020.
The CDC aimed to understand the differences in air quality between a fully smoke-free casino and one that allows indoor smoking in specific areas. They compared the air quality at Park MGM with seven other Las Vegas casinos that permit tobacco use. The results suggested that providing adequate protection for workers and guests from harmful smoke particles requires a complete prohibition of indoor smoking.
Michael Tynan, policy team lead of the CDC Office on Smoking & Health, headed the federal health agency's study. They discovered that casinos that permit smoking had higher levels of Particulate Matter (PM) in supposedly smoke-free zones.
Air Quality on Casino Floors
The CDC tested the air on Park MGM's casino floor to measure the amount of aerosol PM with a diameter less than 2.5 μm circulating in the air. PM2.5, according to the CDC, serves as a stand-in for secondhand smoke.
The Indoor Air Hygiene Institute, an organization committed to enhancing indoor air quality, explains that PM is a combination of solid and liquid particles suspended in the air. These particles are categorized into coarse, fine, and ultrafine categories.
PM2.5 are considered "fine" particles, which are more than 100 times thinner than a human strand of hair. These particles remain suspended in the air for longer durations than larger particles.
A PM2.5 reading of 30 μg/m is considered healthy with minimal risk from exposure. The CDC study found that ParkMGM’s PM2.5 reading averaged 30.5 μg/m during two recent visits to the Strip casino.
In contrast, the other casinos tested significantly higher. The average PM2.5 reading for smoking and non-smoking gaming sections in the seven other casinos was nearly 165 μg/m.
The CDC also found elevated PM2.5 numbers in non-gaming areas of smoking casinos. The smoking casinos tested around 83 μg/m3 in areas where smoking is prohibited.
Park MGM’s non-gaming areas tested higher than its casino floor at about 48 μg/m. This could indicate that Park MGM's no-smoking rule is more strictly enforced on the casino floor than elsewhere throughout the resort.
Entirely Smoke-Free Solution
The CDC's casino smoking abstract concluded that casinos should go completely smoke-free to effectively shield employees and gamblers from harmful secondhand smoke.
Despite substantial evidence about the dangers of secondhand smoke, tens of thousands of casino employees and tens of millions of tourists are exposed to high levels of secondhand smoke in Las Vegas casinos annually, summarized Tynan. "The only way to protect people from secondhand smoke exposure is to ban smoking in all indoor areas," he added.
Of the 25 states that permit some form of commercial casino gambling, only nine are mandated by state law to be smoke-free entirely.
States that forbid indoor casino smoking include Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and South Dakota. It's worth noting that some tribal casinos in these states do allow indoor smoking.
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