Caesars properties offer incentives to get people to wear masks

Caesars Entertainment Corp. is trying to encourage its players to wear protective facial coverings by offering incentives to customers wearing masks.

In a limited-time promotion, Caesars officials said they offered the incentives at their five reopened properties: Caesars Palace, Paris Las Vegas, Flamingo, The Linq Hotel and Harrah’s Las Vegas.

A promotional team walking the casino floors randomly passed out $2o in free slot-machine play to Caesars Rewards loyalty card customers wearing masks while gambling.

A Caesars spokeswoman said over the weekend that $7,500 in free play was handed out to 375 customers.

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.

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.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.