Casino Smoking Foes Submit Shareholder Resolutions — Again

Posted on: April 2, 2025, 01:57h. 

Last updated on: April 2, 2025, 02:13h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.
  • Publicly traded casino companies that allow smoking are facing more shareholder resolutions
  • The resolutions request that companies consider going smoke-free
  • Eleven states with commercial gambling have smoke-free laws

A company committed to promoting clean indoor air workplaces continues to target casino operators that allow tobacco smoking on their gaming floors.

casino smoking shareholder resolution
Vegas Vic has been smoking a cigarette in downtown Las Vegas along Fremont Street since 1951. An activist shareholder invested in several casino companies, including Wynn Resorts, wants to ban indoor casino smoking nationwide. (Image: Shutterstock)

Trinity Health, a healthcare network in Michigan, and the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, a nonprofit working to “create a healthier, smoke-free world and to raise a tobacco-free generation,” last year filed shareholder resolutions with several casino companies. The submissions forced each company to consider how making their casinos fully smoke-free would impact their businesses.

Trinity, which holds shares in several gaming firms as part of its investment portfolio filed shareholder resolutions with Bally’s Corporation, Boyd Gaming, and Caesars Entertainment a year ago this month. Each company considered the proposal but voted against implementing smoke-free policies across their properties.

Trinity says it will soon file similar declarations, but after Bally’s was acquired by hedge fund Standard General and Soo Kim — a $4.6 billion transaction that was completed in February — the healthcare system says it won’t file a smoking resolution with the Rhode Island-based gaming company.

Smoke-Free Casino Proposals

While Bally’s will be immune from a shareholder resolution regarding casino smoking, several other firms will not, a Trinity spokesperson told Rhode Island Current.

Cathy Rowan, director of socially responsible investments at Trinity, says the company will again present smoke-free resolutions to Boyd and Caesars. The healthcare organization will also appeal to Wynn Resorts and Penn Entertainment, two firms Trinity has invested in since last year.

Wynn allows casino smoking at its properties on the Las Vegas Strip, but Encore Boston Harbor is smoke-free because of Massachusetts law. Penn Entertainment allows smoking inside its casinos in states where indoor smoking on gaming floors is allowed. Boyd and Caesars do, too.

Shareholders request the Board of Directors commission and disclose a report on the potential cost savings through the adoption of a smoke-free policy for Bally’s Corporation properties. The report, prepared at reasonable cost and omitting confidential and proprietary information, should be published within six months following the 2024 shareholders meeting,” Trinity’s solicitation to Bally’s last year read.

The appeal added that there are “potential business risks” in allowing indoor smoking, including “higher employee health insurance premiums, greater maintenance costs, and deterring a significant number of potential visitors who won’t visit a casino due to exposure to tobacco smoke.”

Casino Smoking States

Of the 27 states that have commercial casinos or racinos, only 11 have fully smoke-free gaming floors. They are Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, and South Dakota.

Five others allow casino smoking in designated areas: Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the only way to properly protect employees and patrons from secondhand smoke exposure “is to prohibit smoking in all indoor areas.”