Hard Rock Boss Confers With NJ Governor on Casino Smoking

By WAYNE PARRY, Related Press

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The chairman of the worldwide Arduous Rock on line casino and leisure firm spoke just lately with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy concerning the “financial challenges” of banning smoking in casinos, which a invoice pending within the state Legislature would do.

Murphy has mentioned he’ll signal a invoice banning smoking within the 9 Atlantic Metropolis casinos if the Legislature passes it. A spokeswoman mentioned Monday he maintains that stance, however declined additional remark.

Jim Allen, chairman of Arduous Rock Worldwide, advised The Related Press on Monday that smoking was certainly one of a number of matters he mentioned with the governor in latest weeks.

“I do not assume I used to be making an attempt to alter the governor’s thoughts,” Allen mentioned. “It was a common dialog concerning the financial challenges of a smoking ban and the affect it could have” if one have been enacted.

“We function in lots of states the place smoking will not be allowed,” Allen mentioned. “While you have a look at markets the place smoking has been banned, there have been vital double-digit declines” in on line casino income.”

Anti-smoking advocates say the casinos are overstating the potential financial impacts of banning smoking, predicting that clients and revenues will return after an preliminary adjustment interval.

For 2 years, a gaggle of Atlantic Metropolis sellers has been pushing lawmakers to ban smoking within the casinos.

The casinos’ commerce group, The On line casino Affiliation of New Jersey, opposes a smoking ban. It commissioned a report in February that predicted widespread job and income losses if smoking have been prohibited in Atlantic Metropolis’s casinos.

Within the meantime, the casinos’ monetary image has been slowly bettering. Atlantic Metropolis’s casinos collectively noticed their profitability improve within the first quarter of this 12 months in contrast not solely with a 12 months earlier, but additionally to the pre-pandemic interval.

However solely 4 of the 9 casinos individually reported larger gross working income than they did within the first quarter of 2019, earlier than the coronavirus pandemic took maintain.

When it comes to playing income, New Jersey’s casinos, horse tracks that supply sports activities betting and the net companions of each forms of playing shops received $422 million from gamblers in April, up 20% from a 12 months earlier.

And the casinos’ core enterprise, income received from in-person gamblers, surpassed the extent of April 2019, earlier than the coronavirus pandemic hit — an encouraging metric for Atlantic Metropolis’s brick-and-mortar on line casino trade, whose income has been struggling to rebound from pre-pandemic ranges.

However a lot of these will increase have been attributable to the 2 latest casinos, Arduous Rock and Ocean, as has been the case for the previous few years.

New Jersey’s clean-air legislation banning smoking in most public locations comprises an exception for casinos. (An area legislation in Atlantic Metropolis limits smoking to not more than 20% of the on line casino ground.)

The invoice has sat untouched for months within the state Legislature. Requested when or whether or not they deliberate committee hearings on the invoice, a spokesman for state Senate President Nicholas Scutari declined remark, and a spokeswoman for Meeting Speaker Craig Coughlin mentioned, ‘We’re working towards a plan.”

The measure has 16 Senate co-sponsors and 37 Meeting co-sponsors, representing practically half of every chamber, mentioned Chris Moyer, a spokesman for on line casino smoking opponents.

He famous that New York, the place Arduous Rock can be searching for to construct a on line casino, would prohibit smoking there, and predicted New Jersey’s on line casino smoking ban invoice “will move with flying colours” as soon as it’s put up for a vote.

Observe Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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