Posted on 09/01/2014 8:26:39 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Over the last few years, tax revenue from casinos has fallen precipitously which have led to massive budget problems for the city. The recession is to blame, but Atlantic City's problems go deeper than it being a one industry town.
The closing of three casinos, starting with Showboat and Revel this weekend followed by Trump Plaza two weeks later, and the rapid-fire loss of 5,700 jobs, draw historic comparisons to longer-term collapses of U.S. industries such as steel.
"This is a massive economic body blow to Atlantic City on par with the hit to the national economy during the Great Recession," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester.
Beyond the thousands of job losses, which will spread into related industries and the general economy, Atlantic City will soon be left with four empty buildings (including the shuttered Atlantic Club) that have no clear future.
"What we've got in Atlantic City is unprecedented. It hasn't happened before in this type of context, where they are going to shutter them up and literally can't give them away for pennies on the dollar, like Revel," said Alan Silver, a former casino-industry executive who teaches at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
Silver and other casino-industry experts said there was little precedent for reusing casinos for anything other than hotels.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
To top it off AC had a corrupt city government...most of whom were indicted (and jailed) over the last 30 years or so. Combine corruption with a population of welfare losers and put casinos in the midst of that mess and viola! What did they expect?
I’m not really surprised that this is happening. My reason: Over saturation of the market; i.e. too many casinos competing for the gambler’s dollar. And also the bad economy means fewer dollars for gambling.
Look at MD, just opened a casino in Baltimore and one in Prince Georges County to open in 2 years. More competition for the gambler’s money. And the odds are never in the gambler’s favor, or so I’ve been told.
And the idiots here in NY are embracing this losing proposition in the Catskills instead of ending the moratorium on fracking in western NY.
Fracking would bring in much needed manufacturing jobs and other industries with a ready supply of cheap energy.
Can’t have the government dependents off welfare though.
The market for casinos is saturated but the economy is the major reason for the failure of many of them. Mississippi is seeing the casinos lose money and several have closed because of the economy.
I like the Timeshare idea - round up a bunch of people thinking they’ll get a new plasma just for listening to a 2 hour lecture, have them sign some papers that say “Maui”, but with a “substitution clause” that allows “equivalent locations”, figure out a way to call Atlantic City “equivalent” to Maui (maybe percentage of minority population), and you’re done.
Not a bad plan, and given how timeshares suck-in Americans by the millions, just may work.
Vegas will probably always do well. But then there’s only one Vegas, just like there’s only one NYC or Orlando.
The stupidity of the whole thing is the idea that simply building a casino will bring in massive numbers of out of area gamblers, particularly as more and more casinos are being built closer to their homes.
If people just want to gamble, they don’t have to travel far nowadays. If they want more than gambling, they’re likely to go to Vegas.
I never understood going to a crappy casino in a crummy NJ shore town with an eroded beachfront was an exciting day at the beach. The only time we’ve used AC is when some great performer came through.
Back to being a dump. Not that anything had really changed.
Exactly right.
A big lesson to towns and cities that many miss is that a single profitable industry is always a ticking bomb. So unless they diversify, and early, when that industry fails, so will the town or city.
Even the oil producing nations in the Middle East have figured this one out, that sooner or later oil will either run dry or there will be a better mousetrap, so they are pretty desperate to diversify. And doing it early, they are finding out what works and what doesn’t, which is better.
The state and the casinos made a lot of money here in Indiana.
Now that surrounding states (especially Ohio) have joined the party, things are a fraction of before.
I can see the next “big thing” for state govt revenues will be legal marijuana. There will be a rush to be “first in your region”.
The problem is that it’s impossible to diversify beyond “vice” industries like gambling, prostitution and narcotics when the city is a dump.
Pennsylvanians don’t have to travel to Atlantic City anymore, there are plenty of casinos here now.
The casinos in Atlantic City are much nicer than here, but who wants to go to a shore community where you don’t dare leave your hotel once its dark out for fear of being attacked or killed?
I grew up in Atlantic City (well, Ventnor really). We moved the day after I graduated high school in 1966. It wasn’t perfect but a good place in those days. Loved the beach, the Steel Pier, the Million Dollar Pier, the Miss America Pageant, the boardwalk and the convention center that had lots of events. Alas, that was in the days before the casinos came in. Visited with my wife, mom and sister in 2006. I almost did not recognize the place. In some ways it looked better - north end of the island was much nicer - but overall it seemed cold and empty and much of the local charm was gone. I am so thankful not to live there anymore. A lot of folks said the casinos would end up ruining the place, but big money won out. You can blame the economy but I think it goes deeper than that.
Look for Obama to lease the casinos..he can house about 30,000 undocumented kids there...and keep everyone employed..
Especially if that industry is based on discretionary spending.
I like non-confiscatory methods of providing taxes to the government.
I can’t stop the payroll deduction, but I don’t need to gamble or play the lottery, or buy pot.
Atlantic City is not a Mecca...2 blocks away from the casinos are slums and abandoned buildings...Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos are the meccas of casinos..
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