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The new year is a crucial one for Atlantic City’s future, and 2014 won’t start auspiciously.
And it will begin with the closing of one of the city’s 12 casinos, the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel, which is shutting its doors on Jan. 13, the victim of a takedown in bankruptcy court. Two national gambling companies with casinos in Atlantic City, Tropicana Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment, are paying a combined $23.4 million for the business, and the right to strip it for parts and close it down.
Tropicana is taking the slot machines, table games and customer lists, while Caesars is getting the property and its 801-room hotel. Neither has any desire to operate the casino in the now diminished Atlantic City market.
In remarks made the day before the Atlantic Club closing was announced, Christie said 2014 is time for Atlantic City to start putting up measurable results.
“It’s obviously a critical year because we need to begin to see progress in Atlantic City or we’re going to start considering alternatives,” he said. That means considering the once-unthinkable: allowing casinos at the Meadowlands sports complex in northern New Jersey and possibly elsewhere in the state. Currently, state law restricts casino gambling to Atlantic City, along the state’s southern coast.
“It’s a year when we have to show some significant results,” Christie said.
The state legislature wants to approve a commission to study the impact of gambling at the Meadowlands.
“Frankly, New Jersey’s gaming industry in Atlantic City is at a crossroads,” Tony Rodio, president of the Tropicana Casino and Resort and head of the Casino Association of New Jersey, wrote in a letter to state lawmakers earlier this month opposing the gambling expansion study.
He cited private investment in nongambling attractions like the Steel Pier amusement park, the Margaritaville restaurant and entertainment complex, and the downtown outlet shops; a five-year, $150 million casino-funded advertising and “Do AC” re-branding campaign; and the state-run tourism district focusing additional police and sanitation efforts along the Boardwalk, beach, shopping and marina areas. That progress will be jeopardized if investors think cheaper, convenience-based casinos will pop up in other places.
Many casino workers and outside observers fear the Atlantic Club closing could be the first of several in a resort that analysts have long said has too many casinos to support in a shrinking Northeast gambling market. Wayne Schaffel, a former Atlantic City casino publicist in the 1980s, sees more of the same on the horizon, particularly with rival companies preying on weaker competitors.
“It is very likely that this same strategy will be used to take out Trump Plaza, perhaps the Golden Nugget and maybe even the Showboat,” he said. “It will undoubtedly shore up the balance sheets for the remaining 8 to 11 properties, but it will also take out anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 rooms. At the end of the day, the winners will be the few remaining casino companies. The losers will be the thousands of employees who lose their jobs; the state, which will suffer from ever lower revenue and taxes, and Atlantic City itself.”
And the $2.4 billion Revel Casino Hotel could be sold or make a second bankruptcy filing this year.
This will be the first full year of Internet gambling in New Jersey, which the state launched in late November to provide another source of revenue for the casinos. The big question is whether it brings in new money or just diverts it away from spending at the brick-and-mortar casinos. Nearly 110,000 online gambling accounts have been created in New Jersey thus far; the first Internet gambling revenue report will be issued in two weeks.
The state should also decide this year whether to try to take its thus-far unsuccessful effort to overturn a federal ban on sports betting to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Liza Cartmell, head of the Atlantic City Alliance which markets the resort, said Christie should grant a one-year extension of his deadline for an Atlantic City turnaround, noting that the lingering effects of Superstorm Sandy in Oct. 2012 set back tourism in Atlantic City and much of the Jersey shore by more than a year. She also said continuing investment in non-casino attractions proves the resort has a future.
“There are people who believe this island, this magical place, is a gem,” she said. “It’s very rough but it’s continuing to be polished. It just needs some time.”

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State officials say Nevada gambling revenues went up nearly 12 percent this November compared with a year earlier.
The state Gaming Control Board released a report Monday showing casinos won $876 million in November.
Revenues jumped almost 23 percent year-over-year on the Las Vegas Strip, which brought in $529 million last month.
Downtown winnings fell 1 percent to $38 million.
Reno casino revenue climbed 17 percent to $43 million, while South Lake Tahoe winnings dropped 2 percent to $17 million.
The state collected $50 million in taxes on the November winnings, which is up 9 percent from a year ago.
Gambling revenues statewide are up more than 3 percent so far this fiscal year compared with the same period a year ago.

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Scores of Native American tribes have been enjoying the fruits of casino gambling, thanks to legislation conceived, written and supported by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 1988.
More recently, some tribes have developed online payday loan centers as a means of expanding their revenue sources. And, some tribes look forward to both loaning money and taking Internet bets.
One such tribe, writes Cary Spivak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa tribe of Wisconsin. The tribe offers payday loan services, but not in Wisconsin. Apparently, the state’s payday loan regulators pay serious attention to the manner in which the loans are made and also the amount of interest being charged.
Spivak writes that the tribe has been operating three online payday lending companies since May and now has set up the infrastructure for an Internet casino. Until Congress acts to legalize Internet gambling across state lines, some two dozen tribes that are interested in Internet gambling are forced to restrict wagering to gamblers who are physically on the site of the reservation, a practice that has been deemed legal.
Currently, the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa tribe has an online gambling site in operation but players must use play money. If the federal law or state law were changed, say officials, “we could just flip a switch” and turn the action into a real money casino.
As for the payday loan business, officials say only that tribes are in need of additional revenue sources. Payday loan businesses are legal and are considered a “great fit for Indian country.”

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At one time, the addition of table games to West Virginia casinos was considered the vehicle needed to enhance gaming growth. Not any more.
West Virginia officials have reported that a major decline in table game revenue from all four casinos in the state has resulted in a major drop in taxes received by the various communities.
In Wheeling, revenues dropped from $462,758 to $372,436 for the period that ended on November 30.
Wheeling receives table game revenue from all four casinos, including the Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack.
Wheeling officials say they are adjusting by keeping expenses at a low level.

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Projections that the addition of a casino in Natchez, Mississippi, would grow the market have proven true, according to the latest revenue figures provided by the Mississippi Department of Revenue.
A year after Magnolia Bluffs Casino opened its doors, to compete with the only other casino in Natchez, the Isle of Capri Casino, officials note that gambling revenues have grown by 64 percent.
The Natchez city Clerk’s office records indicate that between November, 2012, and November, 2013, gaming revenues grew from $27.2 million of the comparable period to $44.6 million. The Magnolia Bluffs Casino opened on Dec. 18, 2012.
Now, say city officials, the question remains whether the two casinos can continue the revenue growth over time.

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Do the people planning a $112 million casino project in Gulfport, Mississippi, have the funds for the project? That is the question to be addressed this week at a meeting of the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
Rotate Black is the group proposing the casino to be built on private property next to Jones Park in Gulfport. The project was stalled earlier because of financing.
Developers were given until the end of the calendar year to show that they have the money so that they can proceed with the development.
If developers fail to show the financing, the project will have to add more features before they can build because of regulations that have been put in effect as of Jan. 1, 2014.
The new regulations, officials said, deal with the numbers and quality of hotel rooms, as well as certain amenities that will be required in the casino.

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