Smoke-Free Gaming Area Coming To Downtown Las Vegas

Downtown Las Vegas is getting its first smoke-free gaming space.

Plaza hotel-casino CEO of Jonathan Jossel announced this week that four renovation projects, including the smoke-free “social media-friendly” gaming area, are being launched at the resort on Main Street.

Construction is slated to begin this month and is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The additions also include a Pinkbox Doughnuts shop, a shaded outdoor bar at the ground-floor front entrance, and a second-floor rooftop patio outside Oscar’s Steakhouse.

The steakhouse is named for Oscar Goodman, an attorney and former Las Vegas mayor. As an attorney, Goodman’s clients included underworld figures such as Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, once the Chicago Outfit’s overseer in Las Vegas. A statue of Goodman and Spilotro has been placed inside the steakhouse.

Goodman’s wife, Carolyn, is the current mayor.

The Plaza opened in 1971 at the site where the city’s passenger train station once stood. For years after its opening, the resort was called the Union Plaza.

Smoke-Free Area To Include Slots

The new gaming space at the Plaza will include a Brian Christopher Slots floor with advanced slot machines.

Christopher is a California-based social media influencer who partners with casinos in giving customers lessons on how to play slot machines.

Christopher’s YouTube channel has 515,000 subscribers. His Facebook page has more than 595,640 followers. 

Christopher has taken a stance against smoking in casinos, saying he will only partner with smoke-free casinos after Jan. 1, 2023.

Across the country, at least 1,034 casinos and gaming properties prohibit smoking. 

In Las Vegas, ParkMGM hotel-casino in 2020 became the first major resort to ban smoking on the Las Vegas Strip.

Downtown Revival

The construction at the Plaza will be the latest addition to downtown Las Vegas’ revival.

Another was the opening in late 2020 of Circa Resort, an adults-only hotel-casino near the Plaza. Circa was the first resort built from the ground up in 40 years in the downtown core.

The Plaza is on Main Street just beyond the western end of the Fremont Street Experience, a pedestrian mall covered by an electronic canopy with colorful computer-generated visuals.

Known as Glitter Gulch, Fremont Street is the historic core of the downtown casino district. In the city’s earlier years, Texan Benny Binion, and mobsters such as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Moe Sedway, were part of Fremont Street’s gaming history.

The Las Vegas Strip, where well-known megaresorts such as the Venetian and Caesars Palace are located, is outside Las Vegas city limits, south of downtown.