(Radio Iowa) – A bill to ban smoking at Iowa casinos has failed to clear a subcommittee in the Iowa Senate. State licensed casinos objected, arguing they’d lose customers. Tony Phillips is a lobbyist for Penn Gaming, which operates the Ameristar Casino in Council Bluffs.

“Just a blocks away from our facility in Council Bluffs the Ponca Tribe in Nebraska has a casino in Iowa, in Carter Lake called the Prairie Flower and just the last year they expanded from a little boutique 10,000 square foot casino to a 70,000 square foot casino with 600 slot machines, sports book — the whole gamut to compete with us,” Phillips said. “They’re right there. They’re out neighbors and this bill would put us in direct competitive disadvantage with this casino.”

Jake Highfill, another lobbyist for Penn Gaming, says the Ameristar Casino in Council Bluffs also has stiff competition from smoke-free casinos across the river in Nebraska. “Nobody’s making you go to the casino,” Highfill said. “It is 100% adults. Nobody’s dragging kids across the floor. Let adults making adult decisions.”

Senator Dennis Guth of Klemme was the bill’s sponsor. “I am grieved that government has really not played its proper role today,” Guth said. “The role of government is to protect its citizens.” The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services backed the bill and a number of speakers urged senators to adopt it.

Therese Harms represents Clean Air for Everyone Iowa, a coalition of groups that support a ban on smoking in the state-licensed casinos.  “All of the states surrounding us with the exception of Missouri have smoke-free gaming,” Harms said, “and so we are an outlier here.”

Joseph Hafley worked for seven years at a Kansas casino and has founded a group called CEASE — Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects. “As of 2025, 20 states plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands require all commercial casinos to be 100% smoke-free indoors. Those casinos are still operating, still profitable and still employing workers,” Hafley says. “What changed is that workers stopped being harmed just for showing up to work.”

One of the lawmakers who voted against the bill said he gambles at Prairie Meadows and serves on its board of directors, but Senator Tony Bisignano told casino lobbyists at the hearing that Iowa-based casinos need to prepare to go smoke-free soon.