First Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in eastern Connecticut diluted the market. Then the three “racinos” in Delaware (Delaware Park, Dover Downs and Harrington Raceway) brought gambling closer to the Washington/Baltimore and Tidewater Virginia markets.
Then Pennsylvania got in on the act. A “racino” (harness racing track and casino) was built in Chester; Philadelphia Park thoroughbred track became “Parx Racing and Casino” in the NE suburbs of Philly. There is a casino in center city Philadelphia (Sugar House?). Sheldon Adelman tore down the Sands in AC and rebuilt in Bethlehem, PA, which is about 50 miles closer to NYC and north Jersey than Atlantic City.
While this was going on, Charles Town thoroughbred racetrack in the eastern panhandle of WV, 60 miles from DC and Baltimore, opened up a monster casino with 80+ table games and 5,200 slot machines. Charles Town’s owners, Penn National Gaming, opened a casino in Perryville, Maryland and rebuilt their racetrack 20 miles northeast of Harrisburg, PA to house a new casino. Pocono Downs in Wilkes-Barre, PA was bought by the Mohegan Sun people and converted into a “racino”.
There is a gigantic casino called “Maryland Live!” in the Arundel Mills shopping complex near BWI airport south of Baltimore. The MGM Grand people have just broken ground on a massive new casino at the Maryland end of the I-95 Woodrow Wilson Bridge, just south of DC and just east of Alexandria, VA. Ocean City, MD now is competing with AC, as the Ocean Downs harness racing track is now a racino.
There are now slot machines at Aqueduct and Yonkers race tracks in the NYC area. There are several Indian casinos in upstate New York and most of the harness tracks up there (Buffalo, Batavia, Vernon Downs, Tioga Downs, Monticello, Saratoga Harness Raceway) are racinos. In Rhode Island, the dog track and jai alai frontons have been converted to slot casinos; Massachusetts is allowing slot casinos at Plainridge Harness, between Boston and Providence.
Maine is into the act, with a large slots casino in Bangor.
Then Ohio jumped into the casino/racino game with both feet; there are big stand-alone casinos in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo; all of the remaining racetracks in the state are/will be slot machine racinos; and Penn National has built/is building new racinos in the Dayton and Youngstown areas.
Further afield, Michigan has an active indian casino industry, including three locations in Detroit. Ontario and Quebec have casino gaming.
The Atlantic City people 30+ years ago refused to get into business with travel agencies and charter airlines, despite AC having a potentially superior airfield in place (the old NAFEC strategic air base became AC International Airport) northwest of town. Therefore, they never developed a market of gamblers from beyond 200 miles away.
AC is a tragic scene, and it is not going to get better.
Thanks for that thorough list. I wonder if casinos at some point will become so ubiquitous that the thrill will be gone and people will lose interest.