A smoking ban in Asia’s gambling mecca could be bad news for the casinos

QZ – Last week, the casinos of Macau, the world’s largest center for gambling in terms of revenues, got some bad news: smoking will be banned at all casino tables as of October, a move to protect workers’ health. That’s a problem for the island’s massive casino industry—which generated $45 billion last year, several times that of Las Vegas. Macau depends overwhelmingly on gamblers from the world’s largest nation of smokers—China. The mainland is home to about a third of the world’s smokers. About a quarter of the Chinese population smokes, compared to the global average of a little under…