Palms GM Kevin Glass gives a circuit of their caller enclosed smoke-free casino abstraction astatine Palms Casino Resort Friday Aug. 21, 2026. Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
By Ava Chatlosh (contact)
Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026 | 2 a.m.
Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
The Palms is debuting an enclosed, smoke-free casino abstraction equipped with its ain abstracted ventilation system, making it 1 of astatine slightest 3 Las Vegas casinos with a smokeless gaming area.
The abstraction spans 7,300 quadrate feet and houses 224 slot games, making it Las Vegas’ second-largest smoke-free casino space, down lone the afloat nonsmoking Park MGM, officials said.
The room, which replaced the erstwhile Mabel’s Bar & Q restaurant, opened Monday. Resort officials are readying a expansive opening celebration, featuring a personage foundation slot challenge, 4 p.m. Sept. 1.
Palms General Manager Kevin Glass said the modulation was driven by a request for much gaming space. The determination to marque it smoke-free came from lawsuit requests, helium said.
The Palms’ sister spot successful California, Yaamava’ Resort & Casino astatine San Manuel, is wholly nonsmoking indoors, with designated smoking areas outside. Glass said galore customers determination betwixt the 2 properties and had often asked astir a nonsmoking enactment astatine the Palms.
The abstraction has lone slot machines — not array games.
“We didn’t person a nonsmoking country here,” Glass said. “We conscionable listened to what our customers were asking and saying and decided 220 machines isn’t a batch for us.”
The caller abstraction features precocious ceilings, lukewarm lighting and a achromatic marble full-service barroom that serves arsenic the room’s centerpiece. The barroom volition connection rotating section trade beers and whiskey flights, Glass said.
There is nary door, but the ventilation strategy thins the aerial astir immediately, officials said; a mates of yards from the entrance, immoderate odor of fume is dissipated. Still, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ventilation does not efficaciously support radical from secondhand fume — and determination is nary harmless level of secondhand fume exposure.
Park MGM’s smoke-free spot spans 66,000 quadrate feet and features some machines and array games, according to MGM Resorts’ astir caller yearly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It has designated areas extracurricular for those taking fume breaks.
The Plaza has the lone smoke-free gaming abstraction successful downtown Las Vegas, a 2,500-square-foot country that debuted June 10, 2023.
Other properties, similar Mandalay Bay and Station Casinos, person designated smoke-free areas connected the casino floor, but they are not separated.
“There’s a batch of places that effort to bash nonsmoking, but they conscionable bash them successful the mediate of the casino,” Glass said.
Las Vegas casino operators person mostly resisted smoke-free casino floors, adjacent arsenic the big smoking complaint has fallen to 9.9% successful 2024 — a 77% alteration from 42.4% successful 1965, according to CDC data.
A 2025 shareholder ballot astatine respective casinos connected a projected survey into the costs of going smoke-free drew small support. Wynn Resorts, Boyd Gaming and Caesars Entertainment each attempted, unsuccessfully, to support the proposals disconnected their yearly proxy ballots — apt retired of interest that smoking bans would thrust distant business.
That absorption persists contempt a 2022 study from Las Vegas-based C3 Gaming that recovered adopting smoke-free policies “no longer causes a melodramatic driblet successful gaming revenue,” portion “nonsmoking properties look to beryllium performing better.”
Glass said the Palms’ presumption extracurricular shareholder power — it’s owned by the San Manuel Gaming and Hospitality Authority — means less hoops to leap through, making a determination similar this easier.
“We’re a small spot much nimble,” helium said.
Glass expects the abstraction to beryllium popular. Asked whether the smoke-free country could grow if it succeeds, helium said helium wasn’t sure.
English (US)·