Nevada betting on health safety as Las Vegas casinos reopen

LAS VEGAS (AP) — After 78 days of historic quiet, cards will be cut, dice will roll and jackpots can jingle again 12:01 a.m. Thursday at casinos in Las Vegas and throughout Nevada.

There will be big splashes — even amid ongoing protests over the death of a man in police custody in Minnesota — and big hopes for recovery from an unprecedented and expensive shutdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“There’s a tremendous amount on the line, not only for casinos, but for the community and the state,” said Alan Feldman, a longtime casino executive now a fellow at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “This is an extremely important moment.”

Casino resorts that had been famously always open were shuttered in mid-March — idling Nevada’s key tourism and hospitality industry nearly 89 years to the day since gambling was legalized in 1931. Gov. Steve Sisolak’s emergency order closed non-essential businesses to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Now, property owners, state regulators and Sisolak, a Democrat who has been criticized for the closure, are balancing those concerns against the loss of billions of dollars a month in gambling revenue and almost half a million unemployed workers.

They are betting that safety measures — disinfected dice; hand sanitizer and face masks everywhere; limited numbers of players at tables; temperature checks at entrances to some resorts; touchless cellphone check-ins — will lure tourists back.

They know it will look different.

“I’m optimistic that customers will see that gaming properties invested time and effort to welcome them back to a safe and entertaining environment,” state Gaming Control Board chief Sandra Douglass Morgan said Wednesday.

The regulatory board required...