Macao casinos face total smoking ban

Display screens are shown at the gaming table inside a casino during the opening day of Sheraton Macao Hotel at the Sands Cotai Central in Macao. [Photo/IC]

Macao's casinos and gambling trip organizers are fuming over a proposed smoking ban there, while Singapore's puffing gamblers show why.

Smoking has been prohibited for nearly a year in Macao's mass gambling floors, with the exception of a handful of designated lounges, where visitors huddle around ashtrays during hurried gambling breaks.

In contrast, smokers can light up at gaming tables and slot machines on the bottom floor of Singapore's Marina Bay Sands casino. They can even stay seated while hostesses sell them packs of Marlboro or Dunhill cigarettes for S$17 ($12). A bill being considered by Macao legislators to fully outlaw smoking in casinos promises to set the city's 35 betting parlors further apart from rivals in Singapore and other Asian gaming destinations.

While a blanket ban would be a victory for public health, businesses in the special administrative region relying on Chinese mainland high-stakes gamblers say it will be another blow to casino operators.

So far, they have lost $113 billion in market value after Beijing launched an anti-corruption crackdown last year. "A full smoking ban will have a disastrous impact on Macao and VIP operators," said Kwok Chi-chung, president of Macao's Association of Gaming & Entertainment Promoters. "It's like adding hail to snow."

Gaming revenue in Macao is likely to tumble 30 percent in the three months after a complete ban is implemented, according to Kwok, whose group represents the middlemen who bring high-rollers to the world's largest gambling hub.

He may have reason to be worried. Revenue at Illinois casinos in the United States tumbled by more than 20 percent, or $400 million, and admissions dropped 12 percent after a smoking ban was introduced there, researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Missouri, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock found in a study published in 2010.

"State-wide smoking bans are the most significant regulations imposed on the casino gaming industry," they said.

Bans aren't always bad. Never smokers and former smokers are more likely to visit casinos if they go smoke-free, researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee reported at a conference in November.

The stakes are high. As the only Chinese city allowing commercial gambling, Macao reaped $44 billion in gambling revenue in 2014, seven times more than all of the casinos in the Las Vegas Strip.

Kwok's association in July petitioned the central government's Macao liaison office to urge the city government "not do the wrong thing" by making casinos smoke-free. It could take a year for Macao legislators to discuss the bill on smoking ban, Macao Business reported.

The fear is losing large-stake gamblers such as Zhu, a businessman from Shandong province, who said he would visit Macao less if smoking rooms were axed. The 46-year-old, who declined to give his full name, said he visits Macao once a month to gamble, packing about 5 million yuan ($784,000) for his latest trip.