Pennsylvania Casino Smoking Ban Again Passes House Health Committee
Posted on: October 2, 2025, 08:31h.
Last updated on: October 2, 2025, 10:13h.
- Legislation to ban casino smoking in Pennsylvania is progressing in Harrisburg
- Currently, casinos can designate half of their floor space for cigarettes and cigars
Legislation to prohibit tobacco smoking on casino floors in Pennsylvania has once again cleared a House committee.
Pennsylvania Rep. Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny) has been leading the fight to extinguish casino smoking for many years. He’s once again crusading to force casino smokers to move outside to light up a cigarette or cigar.
Frankel’s House Bill 880 — a proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Clean Indoor Air Act to withdraw exemptions afforded to slot machine facilities — passed the House Health Committee on Tuesday with a 22-4 vote. While the Health Committee lent bipartisan support, there are zero Republicans among the bill’s 23 cosponsors.
“Pennsylvanians should not have to choose between their jobs and their health,” Frankel said. “My legislation would eliminate loopholes that leave Pennsylvanian workers exposed to toxic smoke, expand the definition of smoking to include e-cigarettes, and give localities the ability to enact smoke-free ordinances that are more protective than state law.”
Pennsylvania’s current smoking statute allows casinos to designate up to 50% of the gaming space for smoking.
Bill Faces Long Odds
Frankel contends there’s a growing body of evidence supporting the claim that smoke-free gaming is better for business. He cites Parx Casino north of Philadelphia as the top revenue-generating property among Pennsylvania’s 17 brick-and-mortar casinos, and Parx officials say their decision to go smoke-free has lessened employee healthcare costs, improved morale, and attracted new customers, both gaming and nongaming patrons.
Research on trends in the casino business and consumer attitudes indicates that the conventional wisdom that smoking bans cause economic harm is severely outdated and unsupported by contemporary evidence,” Frankel said.
That might be true, but many lawmakers continue to side with the gaming industry in the belief that a smoking ban would hurt play and lead to thousands of job layoffs. It’s why HB880 faces long odds of passing the General Assembly and moving to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D) desk.
Last year, Frankel’s legislation to prohibit casino smoking passed the House Health Committee but stalled upon reaching the House floor.
All but two of Pennsylvania’s 17 casinos permit indoor smoking. Parx and its satellite mini-casino, Parx Shippensburg, are the exceptions.
Casino Smoking States
In the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, Pennsylvania and New Jersey are outliers when it comes to allowing casino smoking. Gaming floors in Maryland, Delaware, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut all prohibit indoor cigarettes and cigars.
Opponents to smoke-free casinos in Atlantic City and Pennsylvania regularly claim that a ban would lead to smokers patronizing the other market where smoking remains. The drive from Philadelphia to Atlantic City is just an hour.
Both markets are performing well. In 2025, in-person casino revenue in Atlantic City, from January through August, was up 2.8% to more than $1.97 billion. Pennsylvania casino revenue in the state’s 2024/25 fiscal year totaled $3.36 billion.
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