Award Date

5-1-2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Hotel Administration

First Committee Member

Toni Repetti

Second Committee Member

Bo Bernhard

Third Committee Member

Ashok K. Singh

Fourth Committee Member

Bradley S. Wimmer

Number of Pages

105

Abstract

A growing number of countries have legislated smoke-free policies in enclosed public areas and have extended the policies to hospitality facilities. However, some states and countries exempt gaming areas from the smoking law fully or partially. Anti-smoking policy is controversial for a number of reasons, such as smokers’ strong opposition, government ordinance, public health, and economic anxiety. Casino management may worry that a smoking ban policy will result in a significant decline of casino revenue because the break for smoking may interfere with continuing play.

This thesis examined a smoking ban impacts on gaming volume and customers’ satisfaction in the casino industry in South Korea. Aggregate monthly data is obtained from Kangwonland casino from April 2003 to May 2013. This thesis employed multiple regression models with the autoregressive integrated moving average [ARIMA] models. Two models are run to account for the economic impact; table games drop and slot machine coin-in. In addition, to examine the customers’ satisfaction toward the smoking ban, another secondary data set is adopted from Kangwonland. Hypotheses associated with gaming volume and customers’ satisfaction were tested by using R programming at a .05 alpha level.

The findings show that a smoking ban does not significantly impact on both table games drop and slot coin-in and that both smokers and non-smokers are satisfied with the smoke-free gaming environment. This thesis uses long-term time period frame unlike previous literature, providing new insights in understanding gamblers satisfaction toward smoke-free gaming environment. Additionally, this thesis adds valuable empirical results to the limited literature base associated with the impact of a smoking ban in Asian casino. The findings of this study suggest that future research continue to investigate on casino properties under competitive environments using diverse research approaches.

Keywords

Casinos; Consumer satisfaction; Customers' satisfaction; Gambling; Gaming volume; Kangwonland; Korea (South); Nonsmoking areas; Smoking; Smoking ban; Smoking impact

Disciplines

Gaming and Casino Operations Management | Public Health | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social Psychology

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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