Smoking in U.S. Casinos Still a Mixed Bag in 2026
As summer vacations loom just ahead, travelers who plan to visit a casino in their travels who hope to be able to smoke while gambling - as well as those who hope to avoid smoke while gambling - will need to do their homework.
What states allow smoking in casinos?
Smoking is allowed in casinos in many U.S. states, such as Nevada, New Jersey, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, and Missouri. Many of these states fall within the top 12 states with the largest total gross commercial casino revenues in 2025.
But smoking in casinos is banned in other states such as New York, Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts.
And even that list doesn't include all the answers. On the Las Vegas Strip, one hotel-casino establishment stands alone in banning smoking on its casino gaming floor. A visitor to the Philadelphia area, meanwhile, can visit nearby Parx Casino in Bensalem.
Other states that allow smoking in commercial casinos include states like Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
Other states with smoking bans include Colorado, Minnesota, Washington, Delaware, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
Another complication is that many states defer to owners of native American casinos - which exist on sovereign tribal lands - on whether they wish to permit or ban smoking on their grounds.
The majority of tribal casinos permit smoking on at least part of the casino floor - but more than 150 of those properties across the U.S. do not.
Atlantic City casinos - Is smoking on borrowed time at those sites?
The largest casino sector that does not feature a non-smoking location in or very near the main location of casinos is the Atlantic City casino industry in New Jersey, where all nine of the casinos offer that option.
According to The Smoke-Free Air Act passed into law in New Jersey in 2006, smoking was banned in all indoor public places except locations such as cigar shops - and also casinos. The latter facilities still can – and do - designate up to 25% of their casino gaming floor to smoking zones.
Atlantic City's casinos were under threat at the time the law passed because major bordering states each opened casinos that same year, raising concerns about the long-term viability of the industry.
Numerous studies have found a correlation between gambling and smoking, and the fear was that banning smoking in Atlantic City casinos would lead too many gamblers to take their discretionary gambling spending elsewhere in the region.
Over time, it became clear that alarmist views about a perceived large negative impact on the bottom lines of bars and restaurants did not come to fruition. It seems that for every patron who shied away from having a drink or a meal because of the smoking ban, plenty of new patrons who are non-smokers tended to replace them.
Eventually, that led to pressure from Atlantic City casino workers who are well aware of the risk of diseases from second-hand smoke to extend the ban to their places of work as well.
But five of what had been Atlantic City's 12 casinos closed in the period from 2014-16, putting the idea of a smoking ban on the back burner.
Hard Rock and Ocean casinos each opened in 2018 to significant success, however, and the industry has stabilized since then.
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The push for a smoking ban intensifies
The COVID-19 pandemic led to casinos being smoke-free once they reopened in 2020, so employees and visitors alike were able to experience that effect until a temporary smoking ban ended in mid-2021.
By 2023, then Gov. Phil Murphy promised to sign a casino smoking ban bill into law if it arrived on his desk.
But South Jersey lawmakers - no doubt mindful of the region's economic collapse from 2014-2016 as more than 10,000 casino employees lost their jobs - were receptive to the insistence of the city's casino operators that an end to smoking would be a negative for the region.
The result was that even though a bipartisan majority of state elected officials have expressed their support for a smoking ban in casinos, leadership in both the state Senate and Assembly have refused to advance such bills out of committee.
That stalemate seemingly had a potential solution in the form of incoming Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who took office in January 2026. Like Murphy, Sherrill is a Democrat in a state with significant Democratic majorities in both chambers of the statehouse in Trenton.
But Sherrill, the keynote speaker at the East Coast Gaming Congress at the Hard Rock casino in Atlantic City on April 15, did not mention the issue in her speech.
That was a major disappointment for Lamont White, a longtime Atlantic City casino worker and co-founder of Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE).
“For two decades, New Jersey law has treated our lives as less valuable than the rest of the workforce in this state,” said White that day.
“Governor Sherrill is speaking to casino industry leaders in a climate-controlled, smoke-free room, while casino workers are forced to choose between their health and a paycheck in the exact same building every single day."
Sherrill's public stance on the thorny issue has been that she would prefer it to be addressed directly through the legislature, rather than in the courtroom. But that opinion did not satisfy White, nor his fellow casino workers.
The state legislature wraps up its session on June 30 with passage of the annual fiscal year budget, and it does not appear that a casino smoking ban is high on the list of lawmaker priorities.
The long-term prognosis for casino smoking bans
The debate about smoking in casinos ultimately appears to be headed more in the direction of a nationwide ban instead of a reversal, at least in terms of commercial casinos. That's because smoking as a whole has dwindled consistently for decades.
The venerable Gallup Poll has results showing that while nearly half of all American adults smoked in the 1950s, that number had dropped to just 11% by 2022.
According to the American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation, 86% of gamblers do not smoke, and 61% of the respondents in their poll said that a casino being smoke-free was a key factor in choosing where to visit. That's a larger number than those who chose cleanliness (49%), travel distance (41%), or the perceived likelihood of payouts (31%).
But the possibility of more states banning smoking in casinos in the next few years does not necessarily mean that New Jersey is prepared to lead the way.
Mark Giannantonio, then-president of the Casino Association of New Jersey (CANJ), said in 2024:
“An immediate and complete smoking ban, while smoking is still permitted in casinos in [a neighboring state], against the backdrop of an already weakened and worsening economic climate, would hurt working-class people, endanger tens of thousands of jobs, and jeopardize the millions of dollars in tax revenue dedicated to New Jersey seniors and people with disabilities, as validated by multiple independent studies.”
Those concerns still appear to hold sway with some of the most powerful voices in the state.
