The Impacts of a Smoking Ban on Gaming Volume in a South Korea Casino

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Published: Dec 3, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5750/jgbe.v14i1.1861

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Sojeon Lee
Kangwon Land Casino
Toni Repetti, Ph.D.
William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Ashok K. Singh, Ph.D.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Bo Bernhard, Ph.D.
William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Abstract

The number of countries and cities implementing smoking bans has increased significantly over the last couple decades with smoking bans becoming more inclusive with less exemptions being given.  Casinos though still have an exemption in most areas since there is uncertainty of the effect to gaming volume but there is a new call to action due to COVID-19.  This study evaluates the long-term effects of a smoking ban in Kangwon Land Casino in South Korea.  A time series ARIMA model for April 2003 to May 2013 was conducted to determine if the new smoking ban in public gaming areas significantly affected table games drop or slot coin-in, which are the two most common indicators of gaming volume for casinos. Results show that the smoking ban did not significantly impact table games drop or slot coin-in.  The results of this study indicate that in the long-term a smoking ban in public areas does not significantly decrease gaming volume. These results add to the minimal studies on the long-term effects of a smoking ban while also being the first study to evaluate an Asian casino.

Article Details

Issue
Vol. 14 No. 1 (2021)
Section
Articles
Author Biographies

Sojeon Lee, Kangwon Land Casino

Sojeong Lee has worked in the casino operation management and HRD since 2000. Her work experience includes working as a casino consultant for the opening and operation of a new casino in Subic Bay Freeport zone, Philippines, from 2008 to 2009, and participation in a project for the new extended Kangwonland Casino in Korea, 2013. She is an expert in casino operation planning and management.She has an MS in Hotel Administration from University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2015) with full financial aid from Kangwonland Inc. Her thesis title is "impacts of a smoking ban on the gaming volume and customers' satisfaction in South Korea".  She has broadened not only her academic career but also social network. She is currently the Head of Human Resource Development at the Kankwon Land Casino in South Korea.

Toni Repetti, Ph.D., William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Toni Repetti, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the Resort, Gaming, and Golf Department in the Harrah College of Hospitality at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She teaches undergraduate and graduate finance, accounting, data analytics, and gaming courses. She has been teaching at UNLV since 2012 after a year at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Repetti’s research interests are in managerial finance, revenue and profit management, and operations with an emphasis on the effect management decisions have on revenue and net income and she has 24 peer review publications. Toni Repetti has over 26 years of industry experience in all areas of integrated resort operations and 19 years in Finance and Accounting. She has held positions with various levels of responsibility in finance from Analyst to Corporate Director of Finance for numerous properties. Toni Repetti received her Ph.D. in Hotel Administration, with a major in finance and a minor in gaming from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She received a Masters of Business Administration from Colorado State University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is also a certified managerial accountant (CMA), a certified hospitality educator (CHE), and holds a Certification in Hotel Industry Analytics (CHIA). Toni Repetti sits and is actively engaged in many industry organizations including the Nevada Hotel & Lodging Association where she is a founding member of the Women in Lodging chapter and chairs the mentoring program.

Ashok K. Singh, Ph.D., University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Dr. Ashok K. Singh received his M.Sc. from the Department of Statistics at Lucknow University, India (1973) and his Ph.D. in Statistics from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana (1977). He joined the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (1977-78) as a Visiting Research Scientist, and moved to the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology, Socorro, New Mexico in 1978 as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics, where he taught undergraduate and graduate statistics, mathematics and operations research courses. In 1990, on a leave of absence from NM Tech, he joined the Environmental Research Center, UNLV as a Senior Statistician, and then in 1991 moved to the Department of Mathematical Sciences at UNLV. In 2006, Dr. Ashok .K. Singh moved as a professor of Gaming to the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at UNLV, and has been teaching  Mathematics of Casino Games and advanced statistics classes including Time Series Forecasting and Data Mining/Business Analytics using the software R. His research interests include data mining, linear and non-linear modeling, public health, Bayesian methods, time series analysis, panel data analysis, spatial statistics, reliability applications, business statistics, gaming, and environmental statistics. He has supervised a large number of MS students at the New Mexico Tech, and MS and Ph.D. students at UNLV. He has published two books in mathematics, and more than 100 publications in theoretical and applied statistics and data mining.

Bo Bernhard, Ph.D., William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

A 5th generation Nevadan, Dr. Bo Bernhard calls Las Vegas home, but he works frequently in jurisdictions as diverse as South Africa, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Macao, Mexico, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Portugal, Albania, Austria, Greece, England, Serbia, and Canada – as well as dozens of states in the U.S. Dr. Bernhard began his research career at Harvard University, where as an undergraduate he completed a double major (sociology and psychology) magna cum laude thesis on the impacts of the gaming industry in Nevada – while captaining the baseball team and earning an MVP award on the nationally-ranked soccer team. The foundations of Bo’s undergraduate analysis have since been extended worldwide, and by the age of 30, Dr. Bernhard had lectured on his pioneering research on six continents.After earning his Ph.D. in 2002, Dr. Bernhard was named the inaugural Research Director at the UNLV International Gaming Institute, and he was awarded a dual professorship in hotel management and sociology. In 2013, he was named Executive Director at the IGI, where he now oversees all research and academic functions. Since 2013, he has grown the organization from two employees to 38, overseeing five “centers of excellence” in gaming-hospitality-tourism. Representing the university in these roles, Dr. Bernhard has delivered over 300 global keynote addresses in clinical, regulatory, government, and policy settings. He has published in the top journals in both the business sciences (including Cornell Quarterly) and the social sciences (including a guest edited special volume of American Behavioral Scientist), and currently serves as executive editor for a leading peer-reviewed academic journal, Gaming Research and Review.Dr. Bernhard’s projects have been prominently featured in local and national media outlets (including The New York Times, The Discovery Channel, The Australian Broadcasting Channel, The History Channel, CNN, PBS, NPR, and all three major US networks). Overall, he has directed over US$12 million in funded projects, on subjects ranging from gaming policy to new technologies to the socio-economic impacts of casino industries to diversity in hiring to internet and mobile wagering. These efforts have earned him several awards: in 2007, his focus on globalization earned him the World Affairs Council’s International Educator of the Year award; in 2008, he was given the UNLV Hotel College’s top research award, the Boyd Award for Research; in 2009, he was given the Hotel College’s top teaching award and the university-wide Spanos Teaching Award; in 2010, he was named a Lincy Fellow at Brookings Mountain West; and in 2013 he was given the university-wide Barrick Scholar Award and the hotel college's Denken Career Award for research. In 2016, he was awrded the university’s top research distinction, the Harry Reid Silver State Research Award, making him the only individual in the history of UNLV to win the university’s top research and teaching awards. Since 2016, Dr. Bernhard has held the Philip G. Satre Chair, the most prestigious chair in the gaming field, which makes him the only faculty member in Nevada to hold a chair at both of the state’s major research universities. Most recently, ESPN profiled Dr. Bernhard for his rare research-based academic impact in bringing the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas, in a manner that effectively countered long-harbored doubts on sports gambling and professional sports.