Trying to find a way to stand out among the a lot of tribal casinos in northern Oklahoma, the new Kaw Nation SouthWind Casino decided not to let consumers smoke when they play the slot machines.

It opened smoke-free on April six inside a little developing with 72 slots in Kaw City, about 90 miles southeast of Wichita, and it has been getting the thanks of grateful nonsmoking gamblers and health organizations ever due to the fact.

A letter from Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin expressing her appreciation for the state’s initial 100 % smoke-free casino hangs on a wall. An organization that combats second-hand smoke delivered a dozen T-shirts towards the casino with its logo on them. The American Lung Association asked the casino to co-sponsor a fundraising event in Tulsa.

And just about just about every day, floor manager Cece Stevens is entertained by first-timers getting into SouthWind.

“The very first factor they do once they stroll in the door is take a deep breath and say, ‘Ah, it smells so superior in here,’?” she mentioned.

Gamblers from Oklahoma and Kansas, including Wichita and Hutchinson, have identified their way to SouthWind, mentioned Pam Shaw, basic manager. Organization is anticipated to develop when thousands of vacationers come to nearby Kaw Lake over the summer season.

There were a good amount of skeptics when plans for SouthWind to be smoke-free had been announced. But, Shaw said, “it’s seriously performing great.”

Within the very first week, 918 people today joined the casino’s players club. That quantity has grown to 2,598, even though the casino has no table games, poker space, restaurants or other amenities.

Mary Turnipseed, who owns a beauty shop in Arkansas City, was among a modest group of gamblers attempting their luck in the machines on a recent weekday afternoon. She goes to other casinos in Oklahoma too.

“I like them, but from time to time the smoke, even with superior ventilation, you go house as well as your garments are smoky as well as your lungs are stopped up,” she said. “We still go, but it is nice within a smokeless environment where you do not have to put up with that.”

Don Rice, 63, among the list of casino’s 19 employees, quit smoking 5 years ago immediately after open-heart surgery. He worked in the Kaw’s bigger SouthWind Casino in Newkirk at the time, and when he returned to work, the smoke irritated his lungs and gave him bronchitis, he mentioned.

“It was just like smoking myself,” he mentioned.

Rice mentioned he hasn’t had any issues given that he was transferred to the new casino.

Joleen Wilson, a nonsmoker from Ponca City, was making her initial visit to the casino.

“It was nice not smelling smoke the minute you stroll in. It is a lot cleaner right here,” she said. “I truly love it right here. I would like to see this develop.”

Shaw mentioned she hopes the smoke-free option catches on, but she doubts it’ll come about. The smallness of SouthWind in addition to a want to guard a tribal museum that shares the developing together with the casino helped with the selection to go smokeless.

“If this was a 1,200-game casino, I might be a little bit a lot more apprehensive about it,” Shaw mentioned.

“I will be kind of surprised if casinos within the entire state started going smoke-free,” she said, “but I would not be shocked to determine other casinos start out offering additional places exactly where it truly is smoke-free.”

Casinos in Kansas allow smoking. The Indoor Clean Air Act passed by the Legislature in 2010 exempted the three state-owned casinos from a ban on smoking it imposed on most other public areas. Attempts to have rid of that exemption have failed, and no attempts are contemplated within the current session.

Rep. Dave Crum, R-Augusta, who replaced Brenda Landwehr as chairman on the House Wellness and Human Services Committee, attempted to repeal the exemption last year but failed. Leadership didn’t wish to threat opening a debate on expanding gambling inside the state, he said.

“You need to go into the casino statutes to impact the smoking ban, and any time you open the law, it opens the opportunity to expand casino gambling,” Crum stated.

Opponents of permitting smoking in casinos cite the wellness hazards from second-hand smoke and say that exempting casinos in the ban provides them a competitive benefit more than bars and clubs that cannot let clients smoke.

Crum said he thinks the exemption needs to be revisited sooner or later, but “right now, it is hard to advance that.”

Managers with the state-owned casinos, like Kansas Star, have fought attempts to ban smoking from their gaming floors, saying income would drop ten to 30 percent, which means less revenue for the state and regional governments.

Boyd Gaming, which manages Kansas Star, tries to make its casinos inviting for nonsmokers in addition to smokers and invests in state-of-the-art air-handling systems, mentioned Carrie Tedore, a Boyd spokeswoman.

“As a general rule, the Boyd culture demands that we hold our casinos clean and fresh,” she stated.

Kansas Star opened its permanent casino in December having a new $7 million ventilation technique, that is much more strong than the system employed when the casino opened in its arena facility the earlier year, said Megan Strader, public relations manager. The new method is definitely the exact same as that used by casinos in Las Vegas and exchanges the air inside the casino for fresh air just about every ten minutes, she said.

Boyd operates one casino inside a smoke-free state: Par-A-Dice in East Peoria, Ill. When Illinois went smokeless in 2008, the complete industry inside the state fell drastically, Tedore said.

A 2009 study by economists together with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis located that the smoking ban led to a 20 to 22 percent revenue decline in Illinois’ nine casinos, amounting to a total loss of more than $400 million in income and $200 million in tax dollars. Admissions dropped 12.3 percent, the study mentioned.

Though the recession was hurting the sector nationwide in the time, the study identified that drops in casino revenue in surrounding states that do not ban smoking weren’t almost as substantial

Unlike the SouthWind Casino in Kaw City, SouthWind in Newkirk isn’t smoke-free, and there’s no program to change that, stated Shaw, who’s basic manager at both facilities.

But the response to the Kaw City casino has been so positive that the tribe may possibly contemplate expanding the smoke-free places inside the Newkirk casino, she stated.

“If we had the opportunity to make a different casino, is it one thing we would consider? Definitely,” she said.