Palms Sells Clean Air Without Ending Casino Smoking

Palms Casino Resort opened a 7,300-square-foot sealed non-smoking slot room on Aug. 24, then cut the ribbon on Sept. 1. The room holds 224 machines beside the William Hill Sportsbook, in space that used to be Mabel’s Bar & Q. The rest of the Palms floor still allows smoking under Nevada law.

Palms Built a Casino Inside a Closed BBQ

The off-Strip resort did not take smoking tables off the main floor. It turned a shuttered restaurant into new casino space, then closed the walls. Palms says the fully enclosed Non-Smoking Gaming Area sits apart from the smoking pit and carries its own bar, which is the difference between a sign on a bank of machines and a room you can shut.

General Manager Kevin Glass has said guest feedback kept asking for more non-smoking play. He has also described the job as adding gaming space. Both can be true at once. A closed BBQ is empty square footage. Making that square footage smoke-free is a product decision, and it leaves the legal smoking floor the size it was.

The San Manuel Gaming and Hospitality Authority, an arm of the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, owns Palms. The tribe paid $650 million for the resort in December 2021, the first tribal operator to take a full Las Vegas property. Latisha Prieto, who chairs the authority, said in 2024 that about 40 percent of Palms guests are locals, 40 percent come from California, and 20 percent arrive from everywhere else. That mix is why a locals-heavy floor hears the smoke complaint every night and still keeps ashtrays in the pit.

Palms posted the grand-opening clip itself, with a quesabirria pitch and a 5 p.m. call time on Sept. 1.

https://x.com/Palms/status/2094916926258499682

7,300 Square Feet, 224 Slots, Zero Tables

The sealed room is about 8 percent of a casino Palms has described as roughly 95,000 square feet. Palms officials have called it the second-largest smoke-free casino space in Las Vegas, behind only Park MGM’s whole property. It is slots only. Anyone who wants blackjack, craps, or baccarat still walks back into the smoking floor, which Casino City lists at 50 table and poker games.

WHAT THE ROOM PUTS ON THE FLOOR

• 224 slots: Palms filled the room with 224 games from nearly a dozen makers, billed as new and popular titles rather than a dump of old cabinets.
• A private bar: The space has a dedicated full-service bar menu, including local beers Palms says are exclusive to that bar.
• Patio tacos: Al Vapor Street Tacos is a permanent food truck on the patio, the quesabirria stop Palms used to sell the opening.
• Sportsbook next door: The room sits near the William Hill Sportsbook at 4321 W. Flamingo Road, so a smoke-free slot session is a short walk from a bet.

Club Serrano is running drawings in the new room on Sept. 10 and Sept. 17. Each night is a $10,000 drawing at 8 p.m., with five winners taking $1,000 in free slot play. That calendar is how Palms will measure whether non-smokers actually sit down.

Nevada Still Exempts the Rest of the Floor

Voters approved the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act in November 2006. Restaurants, grocery stores, malls, theaters, and most indoor workplaces lost the ashtray. Casinos did not. State law still lets smoking continue in casino areas where minors cannot loiter, along with age-restricted bars, strip clubs, brothels, and tobacco shops.

NRS 202.2483 also says owners may voluntarily create nonsmoking sections or mark a whole building smoke-free. Palms used that voluntary clause. It did not have to. A licensed gaming floor in Nevada can stay smoking in full, and most of them do.

Twenty years after that vote, the industry’s preferred move is still a room, not a ban. Park MGM went smoke-free in 2020 and remains the only major Strip resort that applies the rule to the entire casino. Downtown, Plaza opened a 2,500-square-foot enclosed room on June 10, 2023. Mandalay Bay keeps a small unenclosed slot pocket near its sportsbook, on the order of 20 machines, which is a sign on carpet rather than a door.

A 2024 poll by the Nevada Tobacco Control and Smoke-Free Coalition found more than two-thirds of 800 registered voters favored smoke-free casino floors. The statute has not moved. Palms’s sealed room is what a property does when the law still pays to keep the other doors open.

Why a Sealed Room Is Not a Smoke-Free Casino

University of Nevada, Reno researchers walked 14 Washoe County casinos in April and May 2022 and logged 18 kinds of indoor spots, including places marked non-smoking. Associate Professor Eric Crosbie’s team found indoor particle readings at up to 18 times outdoor particle levels, even when only 1.4 percent to 20 percent of people in view were actively smoking. The Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology paper said ventilation did not keep smoke out of the non-smoking corners.

The only way to eliminate involuntary exposure is to prohibit smoking in all indoor areas.

Eric Crosbie, Associate Professor, University of Nevada, Reno School of Public Health

A separate CDC and University of Washington look at Las Vegas found average PM2.5 in smoking gaming areas 5.4 times higher than in a smoke-free casino in the same city. Crosbie’s group put those readings in the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” band on the Air Quality Index. Dealers, cocktail servers, and slot attendants on a smoking floor work that air on a shift schedule. Guests can walk into Palms’s new box. The staff on the main games cannot.

A sealed 7,300-square-foot room with its own door is a better guest product than a rope and a sign. It is still a guest product. Table crews, the sportsbook-adjacent smoking slots, and anyone whose job is the pit stay under the 2006 exemption.

The Short List of Rooms That Close the Door

Las Vegas now has a handful of places where the smoke has a wall in front of it, and a much longer list of carpets where it does not. Palms sits in the middle of that list: bigger than Plaza’s downtown box, tiny next to Park MGM, and actually enclosed, which Mandalay Bay’s pocket is not.

SMOKE-FREE GAMING SPACE IN LAS VEGAS

Park MGM’s 66,000-square-foot figure comes from MGM Resorts’ latest annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That is a full casino, with tables, and smoking is pushed outside. Palms is offering a slot boutique. The gap is the point: six years after Park MGM’s ban, the next large move on the map is a converted restaurant, not a second smoke-free Strip resort.

Players already treat non-smoking corners as a quality test. The worry on the Palms room is the old one, that casinos park weaker machines where smokers will not see them. Palms says these 224 titles are new. Video poker regulars will still read the paytables before they call it a destination, because a clean room with bad returns is just a quieter way to lose.

A Food Truck, a Bar, and $35,000 for 10 Groups

Palms used the ribbon for a charity slot night with IGT, billed as Spin It Forward. Assistant General Manager Laura De La Cruz stood with Glass for the cut. The money was real and itemized.

THE SPIN IT FORWARD SPLIT

1. Aug. 12, 2026: Palms announces the enclosed room, 224 slots, and a Sept. 1 celebration.
2. Aug. 24, 2026: The room opens to the public in the old Mabel’s Bar & Q footprint.
3. Sept. 1, 2026: Ten groups play the IGT challenge, then Glass and De La Cruz cut the ribbon.
4. Sept. 10 and 17, 2026: Club Serrano holds $10,000 drawings at 8 p.m. in the new room.

San Manuel wrote a $2,500 check to each of the 10 groups, or $25,000. IGT put up another $10,000 based on tournament finishes, for $35,000 in all. Proud to Rescue Benevolent Fund, paired with BMX rider Ricardo Laguna, took first and finished at $5,500. Vegas PBS took the extra $2,000 for second. Springs Preserve Foundation took an extra $1,000 for third. The other names on the Palms list were Heaven Can Wait Animal Society, the UNLV chapter of Advancing Indigenous Science & Engineering Society, the Southern Nevada Joint Management Culinary & Training Fund, S.A.F.E. House, The Ability Center of Southern Nevada, Make-A-Wish Nevada, and Teach For America Nevada.

Guest feedback was a driving force behind this expansion, and it was incredibly rewarding to officially open the doors and see the excitement around the space. This is about giving our guests more choice and another great way to experience Palms, while continuing to invest in what they tell us they want.

Kevin Glass, General Manager, Palms Casino Resort

Choice is the word Palms wants on the room. The main floor remains the other choice, and it is still the larger one.

Glass Wants Proof Before the Room Grows

Glass has said the new space will be watched before Palms talks about making it bigger. That is an operator’s sentence. If the 224 machines fill up, the tribe can convert more dining or more unused floor. If they sit cold, the experiment stays a 7,300-square-foot box next to the sportsbook.

WHAT THE ROOM STILL LEAVES OUT

• Table games: There is no smoke-free blackjack, craps, roulette, or baccarat in the new space.
• The main pit: Dealers and floor staff on the smoking games still work under the 2006 casino exemption.
• A property ban: Hotel rooms, restaurants, and showrooms already follow indoor rules; the casino floor is the exemption Palms kept.

A walkthrough video from opening week made the room look quiet to some viewers, which is a thin sample on a single afternoon. The louder limit is structural. Non-smokers got a door, a bar, and 224 machines. Table players and the people who work the pit did not. Palms has Club Serrano drawings in the new room on Sept. 10 and Sept. 17, each with $10,000 in free slot play split among five winners.