Caesars pay guests USD 20 to wear masks at Las Vegas properties

In a limited-time promotion, Caesars Entertainment is offering incentives to customers wearing masks at its recently-reopened Las Vegas properties.

A promotional team walking the casino floors randomly passed out $20 in free slot-machine play to Caesars Rewards loyalty card customers wearing masks while gambling, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. The promotion applies only to Caesars Rewards members wearing masks, but anyone can sign up for a chance to get the free money.

A Caesars spokeswoman said over the weekend that $7,500 in free play was handed out to 375 customers at Caesars Palace, Paris Las Vegas, Flamingo, The Linq Hotel and Harrah’s Las Vegas.

Caesars said it’s a limited-time promotion and gave no indication on how long it would last.

The promotion could be limited by the state, but not because officials don’t like it. Late last week, Gov. Steve Sisolak announced that he was consulting his health and safety advisers about whether facial coverings should be required because of increasing levels of new cases. COVID-19 is gaining steam in Nevada, and state officials are getting pressured to require masks for all casino visitors.

Sisolak has not issued any mandates, but if one is forthcoming, incentives no longer would be needed.

The governor has said incentives have been used with some scattered success by casinos to get more gamblers to wear masks. In a news conference last week, Sisolak didn’t note the incentives or who was offering them.

Caesars Entertainment also was the first company to require facial coverings for players at table games. The state Gaming Control Board eventually adopted an industrywide requirement for all players and spectators at table games to wear masks. Those rules now apply for blackjack, roulette, craps, baccarat, poker, and several less popular table games.

The Silver State’s most powerful labor union is calling for state leaders to require visitors to wear masks in all public spaces at hotel-casinos to protect workers, USA Today reports.

"Workers have fears," Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Geoconda Argüello-Kline said Monday.

Argüello-Kline demanded that Nevada officials follow the lead of California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that citizens now must cover their mouths and noses in most indoor settings and outdoors when social distancing isn't possible.

“The numbers are not going down," Argüello-Kline said. "They’re going up." 

Last week, two Flamingo employees tested positive for the coronavirus, and restaurants inside the Bellagio and Linq Hotel – including Guy Fieri's Las Vegas Kitchen Bar – closed after workers there got COVID-19.