About seven in ten American adults say they’re in favor of having designated marijuana consumption areas at casinos and resorts—and two in five would be more inclined to visit casinos if cannabis use was allowed, according to a new survey.
The poll from the University of Nevada Las Vegas’s Cannabis Policy Institute (CPI) asked a wide range of questions to gauge public opinion on the relationship between the cannabis and gaming industries. The results are meant to inform a report to state lawmakers that’s due next year.
According the survey, roughly 70 percent of adults 21 and older support incorporating marijuana lounges or consumption areas at casino-resorts. A majority also backs the idea of having designated rooms where cannabis use is permitted, similar to how some hotels permit tobacco use in certain rooms.
Almost 60 percent of adults said their gambling habits wouldn’t change if they used marijuana, while just over 20 percent said they’d gamble more and just under 20 percent said they’d hit the slots less. Over 60 percent said the activity of gambling would not impact their cannabis use.
A majority of respondents said they weren’t sure how consuming marijuana would impact their gambling experience, while about 25 percent said it would make it more enjoyable and less than 10 percent said it’d become less enjoyable.
CPI also asked about the prospect of having cannabis delivered to a person’s hotel room, and about 60 percent said they’d be unlikely to utilize such a service, compared to roughly 25 percent who said they’d be likely to get marijuana room service it was available.
“The motivation for the study was that there’s this perception that if people are consuming cannabis, their gaming desires would be suppressed,” CPI Director Riana Durrett said during a presentation of the polling results earlier this month. “But we haven’t found literature to support that, and that’s why we wanted to do research on whether people are gambling less or more or if it doesn’t change their gambling habits.”
CPI Research Director Marla Royne Stafford said that regulators are seeing “a relationship between these two activities.”
“If we want to dig deeper in future research, you’re going to see differences,” she said. “It’s interesting that nearly 60 percent said their gambling habits wouldn’t change. Maybe there’s not as strong a relationship as we thought there might be.”
The survey involved interviews with 620 adults 21 and older nationwide, so it was not specific to Nevada or Las Vegas residents. But Stafford did say at this month’s event that they’re interested in collecting more granular data in the future, and that could involve collaborating with casinos.
With marijuana sales “dipping” in Nevada, “there’s a lot of opportunities being lost,” she said. So regulators are working to determine how the gaming and cannabis industries could hypothetically develop a mutually beneficial relationship if the public interest is there and lawmakers facilitate those conversations.
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Nevada’s first legal marijuana consumption lounge officially opened it doors in February 2024, marking the culmination of years of rulemaking to allow the latest license type.
Tyler Klimas, who served as executive director of the CCB from 2020 to late 2023, said in a podcast published last year that the cannabis consumption lounge development represents the “next frontier” for the industry.
The law—which was enacted under legislation from Assemblyman Steve Yeager (D) and signed by former Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) in 2021—also allows for businesses that couple cannabis with yoga, serve infused food, offer THC-aided massage therapy or incorporate marijuana in other ways.
Sisolak touted Nevada’s lounge law in a 4/20 op-ed for Marijuana Moment in 2022, writing: “The idea isn’t new, but no one is doing it like we are in Nevada.”
“While most of the consumption lounges in other states don’t offer food, beverages or other entertainment options,” he said, “Nevada’s lounges will be a one-stop entertainment shop to create jobs, grow the industry and boost our economy.”
As consumption lounges started to open, the state’s marijuana laws also changed in another meaningful way at the beginning of this year, with an updated policy put in place that more than doubled the amount of cannabis that a person can buy and possess to 2.5 ounces.
Meanwhile, the Nevada Assembly recently amended and advanced a Senate-passed joint resolution calling on Congress to reschedule certain psychedelics, streamline research and provide protections for people using the substances in compliance with state law.
Last month, meanwhile, a Nevada Assembly committee passed a psychedelic pilot program bill that would allow some patients with certain medical conditions to legally access substances such as psilocybin, DMT, ibogaine and mescaline.
Separately in the state legislature, lawmakers have also been advancing a bill that would allow people with past marijuana possession convictions to become foster parents provided the amount of cannabis they were convicted for is now legal under state law.
Read the key takeaways from the cannabis and casino survey in the slides below:
Ohio Is More Than Doubling The Amount Of Marijuana That Adults Can Legally Buy Per Day
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