Smoking in Vegas in public is prohibited, and doing so will lead to hefty fines and a session with the authorities. Now assuming that you are the majority of the population in the city, you wouldn’t want to be served as an offender in a host city, would you?
Smoking refers to marijuana, tobacco products, and vaping products. Unless in select areas of the city, like clubs and casinos, you cannot smoke. There are casinos and resorts where you can smoke, like the Venetian or the Downtown Grand.
The hotels and resorts in Vegas have the sole discretion of allowing smoking on their premises or not. They can only entertain it in places that are not public, like the lounge that is why smoking is restricted to dedicated smoking rooms and the casino floor. Some hotels even have entire smoking-friendly floors, with suites for their patrons.
Smoking Rules In Las Vegas
The smoking laws in Nevada are a tad lenient compared to other cities. 100% smoke-free rules are enforced in Indiana, Michigan, and the likes. That includes hotels and casinos or any public space in the state enacted through the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act.
In fact, smoking indoors is banned in almost every state in the United States except the bustling casinos in Las Vegas and other few locations.
Vegas has exceptions to allow smoking in indoor public places including tobacco stores, smoking rooms in hotels, a few bars, lounges, strip clubs, and casinos. However, smoking is banned in non-gaming areas across Nevada casinos. You are not allowed to smoke in bathrooms, restaurants, or most hotels except in dedicated smoke hotel rooms.
Breaking these laws attracts fines that can sweep your account with a bang- up to thousands of dollars! Electronic cigars skid through a grey area and are not considered a pollutant in state law. But vaping is smoking, so no comparison here.
Many serious gamblers are smokers, and the casino feeds them their addiction. They have dedicated smoking areas on casino floors. If you are a fun gambler, it would be unfair for you to be exposed to passive smoking.
The developers of casinos in Vegas thought of that and instituted smoking-free zones in their casinos. You have all the games that you will find in the smoking section, like slots, video poker, and blackjack, without the smoke.
Are There Smoke-Free Casinos In Vegas?
Smoke-free casinos are not many, but they’re there.
Most of the Las Vegas properties only prohibit smoking in other parts of their hotels except the casinos. For example, the Venetian, Palazzo, Monte Carlo, New York New York, Aria, Circus Circus, and MGM Grand have 100% smoke-free rooms with hefty fines but allow smoking in all areas on their casino floors.
Some casinos like Bellagio, MGM Grand, and Planet Hollywood have tried to implement a partial non-smoking casino policy. These are casinos where smoke-free sections are divided from smoking sections in the same casinos.
This implementation has proven to be an ineffective strategy due to smoke drift that eventually leads to the entire casino looking like a smoking casino.
Non-smoking gamblers often opt to go to 100% smoke-free casinos rather than deal with the second-hand smoke in these partial casinos. Therefore, 100% smoke-free casinos are the best solutions to smoke pollution but casinos are reluctant to implement them.
If you are looking to gamble for fun in an environment with no smoke, you may wonder why casinos still allow smoking, right?
Most high rollers are smokers, from whom casinos get maximum business. It would be a poor business strategy for the managers of these casinos to turn off their money taps. Another reason casinos use to keep smoking is that many of their gamblers smoke despite several studies saying otherwise (about 23% of gamblers in Nevada are smokers).
With that said, since 2020, more casinos have embraced the smoke-free culture. The new non-smoking casinos started as an initiative to curb disease transmissions but have now turned into a city-wide initiative pioneered by MGM Resorts international.
Park MGM is the only resort with a smoke-free casino on the Strip. The hotel was the first to go smokeless in 2020, and MGM has promised to continue exploring such options with their other resorts.
MGM’s smoke-free push is more about marketing than health but it is still a progressive step to creating a clean and fresh environment that attracts more visitors. Unfortunately, other casinos are yet to embrace these practices.
The Only 3 Smoke-Free Casinos In Vegas
Such said, we are going to explore resort casinos that have 100% smoke-free casinos where you can gamble in a clean air environment. Do not worry, they all stock the best games, from high roller slots and tables to the cheap blackjack popular with tourists.
1. Park MGM Las Vegas
- Address: 3770 S Vegas Blvd, Vegas, NV 89109
- Rating: 4.2 stars
Park MGM is a luxury resort on the strip that fortunately has an exclusive hotel non-smoke policy.
There are no smoking-rooms and you can only smoke in designated smoking areas including the NoMad Porte Cochere, Ride Share Zone off the main lobby, and on the Central Park Terrence at the second floor. Please keep in mind that hookahs, marijuana, and other non-cigarette or vaping substances are prohibited in these smoking zones.
With no smoking rooms, casinos, gambling dens, or bars inside the hotel, Park MGM remains the only smoke-free hotel/casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
You can gamble here on high rolling slots and baccarat games. They have invested in state-of-the-art interactive video poker that leaves you glued to the chair.
Enjoy yourself with the plethora of table games available: Baccarat, Roulette, Ultimate Texas Hold ’em, Blackjack, Craps, Face Up Pai Gow Poker, and 3-Card Poker.
2. NoMad Las Vegas
- Address: 3772 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109
- Rating: 4.6 stars
In an effort by the parent company MGM, the boutique NoMad Las Vegas has gone smokeless. Located in Park MGM, NoMad Las Vegas has followed its bigger sibling to promotes smoke-free environments.
Smoking is prohibited in the hotel rooms & suites, restaurants, bars, casino, convention center, entertainment zones, corridors, pools, public areas, lounge area, and any other part of the hotel.
Instead, they have designated smoking areas where patrons can enjoy their addiction privately. Like Park MGM, use of hookahs, marijuana, and other non-cigarette or vaping substances are prohibited in these smoking zones.
Designated smoking zones are shared with Park MGM: Ride Share Zone, located off the main lobby; NoMad West Entrance; and Central Park Terrace, located on the second floor of the convention center.
Smoking in areas not designated for the activity will attract a deep cleaning fee of $500, and you will be in the hotel’s bad books, which may prevent you from receiving complementary freebies in the future.
Enjoy slots, table games, and video poker in a clean and smokeless environment in their casino. The hotel packs high-limit blackjack, baccarat, and roulette too. The icing on the cake will be the no-commission baccarat, where you keep 100% of your winnings.
3. The Plaza Hotel & Casino
- Address: 1 Main Street, Las Vegas, Nevada 89101
- Rating: 4 stars
The newly renovated Plaza Hotel & Casino implements a similar solution to partial non-smoking casinos like Bellagio, but unlike the Bellagio, Plaza has a physically separate smoke-free casino area with its own entrance for non-smokers instead of housing both sections on the same floor.
Not housing both sections under one roof ensures there is no smoke drift and that non-smokers won’t be affected by second-hand smoke.
However, the downside to this implementation is that there are only 60 different games in the smoke-free section compared to 750 slot machines, 23 casino game tables, and bingo in the main smoking casino.
Located far away from the smoking casino area is the ‘Brian Christopher Slots’ (BCSlots at Plaza) gaming area. It is a smoke-free slot gaming area named after the famous YouTuber known for his love for slot machines and casino.
This 2023 addition made BCSlots the first Downtown Las Vegas smoke-free gaming space. It is a 2,500 square feet space with about 80 different slot machines with the latest and best of slot games to entice any slots fan.
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Conclusion
Las Vegas has a lot of casinos, but only Park MGM on the Strip, NoMad Resort, and Plaza Hotel have embraced clean air casinos without any smoking. So, if you are a non-smoker, you will be better off if you stick to these casinos.
Another smokeless place to gamble is the Harry Reid International Airport. Consisting of an assortment of casino games located in smoke-free areas, the international airport stands as another great choice for non-smoking gamblers.
Harry Reid International Airport gaming options include slots and video poker. If you don’t mind the cliché of gambling in an airport, this can be an option for you. Otherwise, you will have to select the handful of resorts with smoke-free policies or sections in their casinos.
Resorts on and off the Strip are taking the initiative to eradicate smoking in their casinos. However, don’t expect them to be fully smoke-free today or next year. But the idea of smoke-free casinos in Vegas is sure to happen.