We all get it. Gambling is a stressful activity. There’s a lot riding on the line—perhaps a few hundred dollars or even as much as a wife or a house. Smokers who gamble find themselves in an anxiety-riddled environment, all too often feeling the urge to light up to curb their addiction and calm their nerves. Unfortunately for gamblers in Macau, recent anti-smoking regulations make it next to impossible to satisfy that need while inside a casino. However, rules are meant to be broken.

Previous legislation in Macau prohibited smoking anywhere in casinos. This was changed, however, in 2014 due primarily to a sharp decline in casino attendance. That year, the law was amended to allow smoking in certain designated lounges inside casinos and VIP rooms, but it was still outlawed on casino mass floors.

The laws were again changed in 2017, banning smoking in the VIP rooms. The law was to be applicable as of January 1, 2018, but casinos were given a grace period to set up VIP smoking lounges that would move the effective date to January 1, 2019. Recent inspections, however, have shown that the casinos aren’t living up to their end of the bargain.

In the first quarter of 2018, violations of anti-smoking laws accounted for 27.8% of all the infractions levied against the casinos, according to local media reports quoting Macau Health Bureau data. A total of 236 inspections were conducted, and detection of unlawful smoking had increased by 138.6%. The increase was due in part to a greater number of inspections being performed at the casinos.