Before and After: A Look at Mississippi's Only Smoke-Free Casino

Audience: Smoke-free advocates and decision-makers will most likely benefit from this poster.

Key Points: The Palace Casino implemented a smoke-free policy when it reopened on June 14, 2011.The Mississippi Gaming Commission releases quarterly reports that provide data on all of the non-reservation casinos. Although these reports do not release revenue data, they do release data on the number of employees, number of slot games, and number of table games for each casino. This poster examines these data for the Palace Casino, in the context of the Coastal Region Casinos. Given the seasonality of tourism and gaming, analyses focus on the 3rd Quarter for each year (the first and only quarter with post-policy data). Data from the 3rd Quarter demonstrate that the Palace Casino experienced no reduction in the number of employees, slot games, or table games after implementing a smoke-free policy in June of 2011. Moreover, data from the Coastal Region Casinos demonstrate no reduction in the Palace Casino market share of the region after implementing a smoke-free policy, as measured by the number of employees, slot games, or table games.

Educational Experience: The poster and presenter will provide background on the need for objective economic measures to assess the impact of casinos going smoke-free, and then describe the methodology of using workforce and gaming data.

Benefits: The audience will have a better understanding of methods to assess impact of smoke-free policies in casinos and of the lack of any negative impact that this policy had on the first Mississippi casino to go smoke-free.