The U.S. Surgeon General released a landmark report in 2006 stating there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure kill nearly 500,000 Americans annually. For gaming industry workers on casino floors, largely people of color and women, lack of access to smokefree air can deepen existing disparities in health outcomes.

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers states: “There is no currently available or reasonably anticipated ventilation or air cleaning system that can adequately control or significantly reduce the health risks of environmental tobacco smoke to an acceptable level.”
Other casinos have successfully adopted a smokefree policy indoors. Parx Casino’s Chief Marketing Officer told the Play Pennsylvania website in February 2023 that since the casino went smokefree, Parx has seen a positive effect on the health and morale of employees, with no increase in health insurance premiums: “Frankly, we are starting to see health costs go down .... What’s been interesting to me, is a lot of our smoking guests have actually said things like, ‘I never realized how smoky and annoying it was. I really don’t mind walking 50 feet out to the smoking patio.”

Speaking at a recent industry conference, a senior official of Foxwoods, the nation’s largest resort casino which has been smoke-free since reopening after the pandemic, said that Foxwoods’ surveys found strong support for ending indoor smoking.

New customer preferences require an examination of the status quo in which smoking is allowed in gaming properties. We believe our Company could enhance its safety initiatives by conducting the report our proposal requests.
As independent researchers C3 Gaming found in analyzing revenue performance in several competitive casino markets, smokefree casinos, for the first time, generated more revenue: “Data from multiple jurisdictions clearly indicates that banning smoking no longer causes a dramatic drop in gaming revenue. In fact, non-smoking properties appear to be performing better than their counterparts that continue to allow smoking.”

There are potential business risks to allowing indoor smoking in Wynn properties: higher employee health insurance premiums (when compared with casinos that don’t permit indoor smoking); greater maintenance costs; loss of a significant number of potential visitors who won’t visit a casino due exposure to secondhand smoke. A recent Gallup survey found the rate of adult cigarette smoking to be 11 %, the lowest in 80 years.

Shareholders have no guidance as to the costs our Company is bearing for continuing to allow indoor smoking. The Company has not disclosed the social and environmental costs and risks imposed on its stakeholders.