Philly Casinos Ban Indoor Smoking. The 20-Foot Line Isn't.

Philadelphia banned smoking in most indoor workplaces in 2007. The Section 10-602 of the Philadelphia Code that does this has a long and politically tortured history. The Clean Indoor Air Worker Protection Law passed Council in January 2006, took effect in stages, and was the subject of a years-long legal fight between the city and the casino industry.

The casinos won a delay. Subsection (.1)(g) of Section 10-602 carves out a separate, parallel ban — smoking in "licensed gaming facilities" — that did not take effect until January 8, 2007, almost a year after the rest of the workplace ban. By that point, Pennsylvania had passed its own statewide Clean Indoor Air Act, which let casinos apply for a smoking-permitted floor. The state preemption ran into the city ban. The city won, eventually, in the courts. The casino carve-out was dead by 2007 in Philadelphia.

So far, this is a success story. A city banned smoking indoors, the casinos pushed back, the city won, and Philadelphians have been working in and visiting smoke-free gaming floors for almost 20 years. Pennsylvania's state law still allows up to 50% of a casino floor to be designated smoking, and in practice every PA casino operates at that ceiling, but Philadelphia's ordinance is stricter and preempts the state for casinos in city limits.

Here is the part that is interesting. Subsection (.7) of the same section, 10-602, also prohibits smoking outdoors within 20 feet of any entrance to any enclosed area where smoking is prohibited. So no smoking within 20 feet of the casino's front door. Same rule as every other enclosed workplace in the city.

The structural effect is what you would predict. The casino has to keep smokers out of the building. It also has to keep them out of a 20-foot bubble around the front door. The result: smokers cluster at the edge of the 20-foot line, often under awnings, often in designated outdoor smoking areas, often in places where other patrons, hosts, security guards, and passers-by are walking. The casino has a strong incentive to make that 20-foot line as accommodating as possible. It puts ashtrays, heaters, and benches at the line.

This is the part of the Clean Indoor Air story that nobody talks about. The ban is real. The ban is enforced. The ban has worked, by every public health measure, in reducing indoor air pollution in the city's gaming facilities. But the ban is also not airtight. There is a 20-foot hole around every door, and the hole has been optimized to be as comfortable as possible for the people standing in it.

Rivers Casino Philadelphia went smoke-free indoors voluntarily in 2022, then reversed the policy in early 2023 and reintroduced designated smoking areas on its gaming floor. As of 2026, Rivers still permits indoor smoking in a portion of the casino and operates several outdoor smoking areas as well, including a walled, roughly 10-foot-by-10-foot smoking patio accessible only to poker players, on a technically-outdoor footprint. The other two Philadelphia-area casinos split sharply. Parx, in Bensalem, has been 100% smoke-free indoors since 2021 and operates only a covered, heated outdoor smoking patio near the West entrance. Live! Casino in South Philadelphia, by contrast, allows indoor smoking in designated areas on the gaming floor. The state legislature is, as of 2026, considering a bill that would close the 50% state-level loophole. The casino industry is fighting the bill. The bill is not yet law.

Most of the Rivers Philadelphia casino employees I know personally hate that they have to work in an environment with smoking — even the ones who themselves smoke. They understand the hazards. I can cite at least three from my own network. A floor games dealer spends entire shifts in the smoke-allowed section. A waiter at Mian, the indoor Chinese restaurant at Rivers that sits near the indoor smoking-allowed part of the gaming floor, deals with it for hours at a stretch. A poker dealer I know works in the smoke-free poker room, so he is not personally affected. The ban is on the books. The exposure is in the air.

The Code is a working document. Section 10-602 was passed as a clean line: no smoking inside, no smoking within 20 feet of the door. Almost 20 years later, the line is still in the Code. The cluster of smokers at the line is, in a sense, what the line has produced.