This is a well-written NY Times article about where Atlantic City is today, even if it’s the same song we’ve been hearing for decades now:
Just a few years ago, Atlantic City was boomtown U.S.A. Day-tripping retirees plunked quarter after quarter into slot machines at the casino warehouses lining the Boardwalk. The city was in the midst of a huge building expansion as casinos invested billions of dollars to build new hotel towers and to dress up fading interiors. Plans for a handful of megacasinos were on the drawing board, promising to bring lots of Las Vegas-style sex and sizzle to this seaside resort.Today, Atlantic City, in the eyes of one gambling executive, Tim Wilmott, is in a “death spiral.”Rows of slot machines stand eerily empty. Over the summer, the Tropicana was sold in bankruptcy court; another 3 of the town’s 11 casinos are currently under bankruptcy protection. The lender for yet another, Resorts International, is in talks to take it over and could by year-end. Resorts was the first casino outside of Las Vegas to offer legal gambling, in 1978.Many of the rooms stuffed inside luxurious towers built during the high times are empty during the week. And plans for a majority of the megacasinos have been shelved. Only one, the Revel, is under construction — and many question whether its developers will be able to raise enough money to finish the project.The economic slowdown has shown that the gambling industry is not quite as recession-proof as was so long believed. Gambling on the Las Vegas Strip is falling on a par with Atlantic City, and many other gambling locales nationwide are also hurting. But Atlantic City’s challenges may be greater than those faced elsewhere. A second blow — and one that most of the local casino operators here underestimated — is coming from gambling operations that opened in recent years in nearby states.
via Can Atlantic City Raise the Stakes and Move Beyond Gambling? – NYTimes.com.
You’ve got to understand that I’ve been hearing this same debate (“Atlantic City is dying…no, it’s just around the corner from greatness”) all of my life, so I’m a little jaded. The city has always been just this close to turning it around, or dropping off the face of the earth.
I think I’ve weighed in on Wilmott’s provision before, but I’ll repeat myself: this guy wasn’t talking death spiral when he was trying to finagle the entire Bader Field site from the city or buy the bus lot on Route 30 and have the zoning changed so he could build a casino there. When Penn National actually stops kicking the tires and buys something on the Strip, maybe the company will have a little more relevance.
So is the city doomed or on the verge of a golden age of prosperity? I’d guess that it’ll continue scuffling along as it has been for the last 30 years, with a little less reliance on day-trippers.