Tuesday, April 14, 1998 | 9:06 a.m.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health studied 29 non-smoking dealers and supervisors at Bally's Park Place Casino Hotel and took air samples on the casino floor.
The study, which was prompted by an employee's request for a "health hazard evaluation," was conducted over three days in March 1996. The results were published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine last month.
"This evaluation demonstrates that employees working in the gaming areas of a large casino are exposed to (secondhand smoke) at levels greater than those observed in a representative sample of the U.S. population," the study concluded.
The employees' inhalation of smoke increases their risk of lung cancer and possibly heart disease, according to the study.
For gamblers and casino employees alike, smoking in casinos is a burning issue.
Complaints and fear of lawsuits have prompted some casino operators, including the Sands Hotel Casino and Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino, to establish non-smoking tables and non-smoking areas. Often, though, they are located immediately adjacent to smoking areas, with no partition.
Employees complain that they can't escape the secondhand smoke. Last October, nine Nevada casino dealers filed a class action suit against 17 tobacco companies.
A bill currently before the New Jersey Legislature would ban smoking in public places - including casinos. Casinos say that would cost them business.
"Smokers are a sizable part of the gaming public," said Michael Pollock, a casino expert who writes a newsletter about the industry in Atlantic City.
"To people who are smokers, it's more socially correct or allowable in the casino than in many places," he said.
If smoking were banned in Atlantic City casinos but not elsewhere, they would lose business to competitors where gamblers were allowed to smoke, Pollock said.
But casino operators will fight hard to prevent such a ban, according to Paul Billings, deputy director of government relations for the American Lung Association.
"The casino lobby is extremely powerful," Billings said. "When you get the tobacco industry in there with them, you get a very powerful group opposed to controls. They all cry economic doom and gloom. But when restaurants and bars have gone smoke free, they haven't been hurt."
In the study, the workers submitted pre- and post-shift blood and urine samples. Air samples were taken from smoking and non-smoking table games and other casino areas.
The employees' fluids were tested for cotinine, a chemical formed by the body's metabolism of nicotine. Compared to a control group with no on-the-job smoke exposure, the casino workers had cotinine levels "substantially higher" after finishing work than before their shift, the study showed.
The pre-shift average was 1.35 nanograms per milliliter, compared with 1.85 nanograms per milliliter post-shift, the study found.
NIOSH, a federal occupational safety research agency that is part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says secondhand smoke poses an increased risk of lung cancer and possibly heart disease to occupationally exposed workers.
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