Monopoly lost

Quote: yahoo article

Atlantic City's rise and fall

Griffin, the Trump CEO and Casino Association president, said Atlantic City should bottom out at around $3.5 billion, then slowly start to grow again.

"There's a lot of pain coming, but I strongly believe that in 2012 you're going to see us coming back," he said. "I definitely think better days are ahead for Atlantic City." Could that be a new marketing slogan for Atlantic City? Most of America seems to know that "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." Yet how many people can correctly cite Atlantic City's tourism slogan, "Always Turned On"? The resort is thinking of a new slogan. The effort has been going on for three years.

In the dozen or so news articles that I worked on in Vegas papers, one of the things that bugged me the most is this relatively mindless chatter put out by the companies. Atlantic City had revenue of $3.58 billion in 2010 and has been plunging for the first four months of 2011.

Where does Griffin, base his statement about the bottom being at $3.5 billion? Is this why these guys are paid 7 figure salaries? Sometimes they seem to be just making up things.

Quote: pacomartin

Where does Griffin, base his statement about the bottom being at $3.5 billion? Is this why these guys are paid 7 figure salaries? Sometimes they seem to be just making up things.

He's saying what people want to hear, to keep his job. I'm sure there were optimists on the Titanic, even as it was going down..

Quote: EvenBob

He's saying what people want to hear, to keep his job. I'm sure there were optimists on the Titanic, even as it was going down..

The current 12 month rolling average for AC is $3.495 (as of April since May has not been released). So you are already slightly below $3.5 billion. There was a nearly unbroken string of 52 straight months of decreases.

The first four months are $1.085 billion, which multiplied by 3 is roughly $3.2 billion for the year.

So to be optimistic you could say $3.2 billion. But at least you are picking some number below the present value.

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I was working with a reporter doing an article on the quarterly report Goldman Sachs subsidiary that owns the Stratosphere. They just released a terrible balance sheet, followed by a long press release about the sky jump ride and the new (actually newer) furniture they were installing in some of the rooms with incredibly rosy prediction about future room rates.

The reporter told me that the company is entitled to their say. Of course they are entitled, but the Sky Jump is a ride that requires a trained crew and specialized equipment that takes only one person at a time. Even if the ride is successful beyond their wildest wet dreams it can't help but be a be equivalent to a needle in the haystack of this multi million dollar operation. He thought about that and agreed that he should have at least noted something in the article scaling the financial impact.

If you read the comments on that Yahoo! article, they overwhelmingly agree on one thing: people don't like to go to AC because outside of the casinos the city is a dump. That's what I've said here in other threads, that's what others have said here in other threads. If AC had taken care of business right from the start, and pumped some of that revenue into the community, they would have nothing to worry about today. But outside of the casinos and that shopping mall area it's a slum. You want to drive from the boardwalk casinos to the bayside casinos? You'd better stay on the limited access roads, because if you cut through the middle of town it's The Griswolds in Vacation time. You want to eat outside of the casinos? Fine, but do it while the sun is still up.

Why is AC dying? Easy. It was suicide.

Quote: Mosca

If you read the comments on that Yahoo! article, they overwhelmingly agree on one thing: people don't like to go to AC because outside of the casinos the city is a dump. . . . Why is AC dying? Easy. It was suicide.

True enough. But the casinos have also let themselves go inside, what with robberies, shootings, murders and the like, not to mention some of the most abusive "customer service" on the planet. And it is clear that they plan to do nothing about any of that. Witness the virtual absence of security on the floor and the declining supervision like the removal of boxmen from the craps tables.

Maybe things will change when Revel opens next year.


But that's a big "maybe" and a long way to wait...

Someone pointed that article to me a few days ago. It made me sad.

I'm 31. I lived in suburban New York (North NJ) for the first 29 years of my life. I am a rabid defender of the Jersey Shore (not the television show), although I admit I sometimes see it through the rose-tinted glasses of my childhood. My first visit was at 1 AM on my 21st birthday. My g/f and I drove from my Philly-area college (Rowan U for anyone who knows the 'Boro) down the AC Expressway and into a town I had driven past so many times prior, but never been allowed to enter.

Allowed. We parked at Caesar's (paid our $5 fee on an otherwise non-descript very-late-Saturday-night / very-early-Sunday Morning in 2001) and.. walked on in. No security. No ID check. No... nothing. Sat down with my girlfriend. And we suffered an outright devastating loss. 2 rolls of nickels in the Video Poker machine. We were on cloud 9... We walked the boards. It was a beautiful moon over the ocean. Several homeless were panhandling at the late hour. Dozens more slept under the boards. Somehow The Drifters' song lost some of it's shine that night.

It's funny... Atlantic City is a strange town. It is not the county seat of Atlantic County, NJ (That's May's Landing, 20 miles inland, down the Black Horse 'Pike). Through it's history and proximity to Philadelphia and, to a lesser extent, the population centers of North NJ and NYC, it was always a quintessential Jersey Shore (again, not the TV show) town. I, for the life of me, don't understand how AC got to where it was.

Wait, yes I do. Hubris.

From '78 until '92, AC had zero competition. It was like the fish introduced into the lake that had no predators. It ate *everything* in its sight and there was nothing nobody could do about it. Really, up until a few years ago, where else were you going to go gamble for a few hours or an overnight? Even when the 2 Native American properties in Connecticut opened and allowed gaming (Foxwoods started table games in '92, Mohegan Sun opened in '96), they served a largely separate (CT/Boston/RI based) market. It was *way* too far away for the Pennsylvania crowd to hit in a weekend and driving through the Bronx to get up to CT was a significant enough pain in the rear that most New Jerseyans kept going to AC. It really was only able to take a small segment of the NYC folks who mainly lived on the north and east suburbs of the city, anyway.

And then the poo started to hit the proverbial fan.

Delaware allowed slots at it's racetracks. In turn, Pennsylvania legalized slot gaming. Within the past 2 years, both have legalized a more full array of gaming endeavors - tables and poker. People at Harrahs Chester are, for the most part, *nice* to you.. Pit bosses will shoot it with you while you play, the customer service attitude is there. And this burns my bottom because I have an in-bred hate for the state of PA.

What will it take to make Atlantic City a viable place where people will want to go?

• Security: In the casinos, outside the casinos, all around the town. People need to not be accosted when they step outside the doors of their casino. People need to feel safe when in a casino.
• Something else to do at different price points: Quick, name me what else there is to do in AC besides gamble: There's a couple good in-property restaurants, an IMAX movie theater (Trop), a couple of bodegas on the boards (these are fitting in the overall theme of the Jersey Shore, but are dilapidated) and a Ripley's Believe it or Not that I've never actually seen anyone patronize. Oh, yeah, there's a half dozen Chinese Qi-Gong Massage Parlors and the Atlantic City Outlets - which must be accessed by the Mississippi Ave (the street separating Ballys from Wild Wild West) or you risk your life. Actually, you risk your life regardless, but you walk right past AtlanticCare Hospital, so the odds are better (It's whether or not you make a good bet, right?). It's a tough nut to crack. The ocean is only a viable destination for 3-4 months out of the year - mid-May through mid-September. Anything out side of that is too cold. With four real seasons (I've been to Vegas in January. It's not Winter. Mid 50's highs and Mid 30's low isn't really winter.), a single "thing" isn't going to work, no matter what it is. It will be a combination of entertainment - proper spas, a small set of meaningful entertainment/show venues with acts that different strata of people want to see, clubs, bowling alleys that aren't the local grind (Lucky Strike), etc. The town has a great history and a fantastic (if, small) historical museum. It's on the north side of the Boardwalk, just north of Showboat. If you haven't been, I encourage you to check it out. Restaurants need to be developed that are outside of Casino influence. Some exist (Melting Pot, Ruth's Chris are upscale chains with out-of-casino locales, Dock House and (the slightly-out-of-the-way) Knife and Fork Inn are historical upscale AC staples of the restaurant scene. Non-casino entertainment needs to be revived - arcades are a dying breed and salt-air has a way of wreaking havoc on rides, but some draw to the area that's outside the casino walls needs to be established. There was always a family-friendly area in this town. It needs to remember those roots and understand it's future through that experience.
• Leverage the region in which it sits: Cape May Courthouse (that's the name of a town) has an under-rated but absolutely fantastic zoo. There's an entire economy around week-long vacations in the 40 miles up and down the shoreline from AC (roughly from Seaside Heights to the north down through Cape May in the south). Cape May links to Delaware via the Cape May-Lewes Ferry. Guided tours can be arranged to Historical Cape May, the Pineys. Boats can be chartered to go whale/dolphin watching or to see Jersey's Light Houses. All of this stuff already exists. The infrastructure is already in place. It just needs to be properly aligned and advertsied.
• Consolidate:The AC casinos are too far apart. The Boardwalk cluster roughly mirrors the strip - smaller in size than the Strip, but it's a singular, continuous unit connected by a viable walking path. The Bay-side casinos are completely disparate from this. How do you get from Borgata to Harrahs to Trump Marina Golden Nugget to any of the Boardwalk properties? You drive. There's the Jitney - but that's not a viable form of transportation. It takes too long, makes too many stops, has small vehicles and is, overall, a dirty experience. You can't walk - it's too far and there's no way to actually get from one place to another (save up and down the Boardwalk). And taking a cab is more expensive than just re-paying for every other parking (You pay $5 once, and you get your next parking in-town free, if you save the receipt.) This distance doesn't play into a cohesive entertainment district like the Strip, Beale Street, etc.
• For the love of all that is good, clean the place up!!The beach is uncombed and littered with fragmented shells (natural) and fragmented beer bottles (not so natural). Walking on the boardwalks is a scary, with all of the loose boards and, at times, exposed nails. Homeless and the less fortunate panhandle everywhere - and that's on the Boardwalk. Even walking 1 or 2 blocks inland and the response may be far more aggressive. AC always had a poor area. There were immigrant enclaves for quite a while and there's always been "That side" of town (If you're up for an experience, take Illinois Ave from the Boardwalk (Where the Sands once was) up past Atlantic Ave where it turns into MLK Blvd to the White Horse (US-30) on the Bay side to get to Borgata/Harrahs/Nugget.) It's an experience.

The area's been mis-managed into the ground. I still have hope, if there can be a commitment to getting things done at the expense of personal profit and grandstanding government. Sadly, knowing the politics of the area, I know this is a significant long-shot. When slots are finally allowed into the Meadowlands (race track in North NJ) and/or intra-state online gambling is allowed (a bill was vetoed by the Governor for now), the place will be - quite unfortunately - toast.

-Newbie

Newbie -

Great observations, and well organized.

Unfortunately, most of the thoughts presented, could easily be changed to reflect the same comments about the decline of Las Vegas.

Then again, maybe not.


For the record, I live in northern NJ. It's a difference of about 2 miles if I head to AC or to Mohegan Sun, CT.

Yeah, there's not a lot to do in AC, besides the casinos, the relatively small retail zone, and the ocean. I did go into Ripley's once, and enjoyed it. I plan to head to the AC museum one of these days. A couple arcades, the Steel Pier, and the requisite souvenier/crap shops. Other than that, there's not much to do.


The "safe zone" around the LV strip, where tourists start to be wary of their surroundings, is several blocks away from the strip. In AC, the safe zone stretches all the way to the curb at the casino's door.

Did you know that, originally, there were no ATMs in AC casinos? Casinos, obviously, wanted them, but the lawmakers didn't. It was only after too many people got mugged when going to the bank across the street, that ATMs were added.


AC's problem was that they always had the attitude "If you build it, they will come." They built it, and, sure enough, they came. But only those people that had the means to do so came. I.E. Very few people flew to AC. It's closest airport is 15 miles away, labeled "International" but having the service of commuter air field. Next is Philly, which is better, but 60 miles away. The best "local" airport is Newark, at 100 miles! And then there's the drive from Newark/NYC. Until last year, there was a LONG stretch on the Parkway that was only two lanes each way. In the summer, it always got clogged. Finally, in the wake of competition from casinos in neighboring states, the Parkway was expanded last year - but not all the way to AC. Even if it was all the way, it's too little, too late.


You're right that AC needs better advertising and marketting. I can't remember the last time I saw a TV commercial for AC or even an AC casino. It's rarely even the casino destination of choice in TV shows. "Friends" had a story line that included a few episodes in Vegas. Couldn't that have been in AC? I believe "Everyone Loves Raymond" did a Vegas story/episode as well. Both of these were NYC based shows, so it would have made sense to gamble in AC.

This afternoon, while heading to my day job, I was getting off the Parkway onto Route 80 and saw a billboard advertising a hamburger joint. I didn't get a good look, but in the last split second, I saw the Harrahs logo. Really? Is that the kind of advertising they're doing? I must go back there in the next couple days and take a picture, and post it here.

Without blinking or looking it up, that puts you in Southern Bergen County. Elmwood Park, Fair Lawn, Paramus, Emerson.. That area. 2 miles and the choice of the Trans-NYC clusterf*ck or the GSP clusterf*ck. And you never know which is worse :). Hi old-neighbor!

I think a lot of the same issues are affecting Vegas and AC, but the solutions are going to be different. Vegas might need to re-size itself (which, lest I make as if this is a simple thing... "re-sizing" causes a *lot* of people a *lot* of pain), as gaming opens up and becomes tolerated in more and more locales (state-side and abroad), but I don't think it's going to completely evaporate in the desert sun.

Atlantic City was never a national destination. And, for right now, I think that's too big of a vision. It needs to find a niche where it can capture a regional, Mid-Atlantic audience. It needs to eclipse Ocean City, MD, the NY/Philly urban centers and - at the very least - coexist with the other Jersey beach destinations. In that scope, it actually has a lot going for it. I mean, it's the only place on the shore with more than a couple hundred "real" hotel rooms (not, as my wife would say, "Camping rooms" where the room doors lead directly to the outside).

The Jersey shore has always done well for itself in poorer economic times. In good times, the middle class might escape NY/Philly by going to California, a shorter trip to Europe, etc. In bad times, that class of folks is going to stay closer to home - to Eastern LI, upstate NY or... The Jersey shore. I think one of the bigger problems affecting both AC/LV locales is that ever-shrinking middle class. The people who have the means to spend $50 on gas to/from the locale and still have a couple bills to spend on entertainment.

I do love the city's official slogan though: Always Turned On. I'm not sure if it was referring to what the hooker said to the greying man in his 60s as she slithered up to him on the crap's table or if it was more along the lines of the crack-head who was just too wired to sleep at 3 AM, not to mention the sexual innuendo that's just to easy.*

I mean, Honey, we've got to take the kids to that place!

* It is situated in an area that very much of the commerce around the area closes fairly early (given that it's in the northeast US). Even the other boardwalks up and down the shore close at midnight at the latest in the peak of summer season. My belief is that the slogan is a subtle play on New York's "City that never sleeps," along with a just a twinge of sordid excitement in the word choice when we didn't speak so brazenly all of the time. Now that such word play is the norm, this isn't the appropriate slogan for a city that wants to draw in a mixed crowd.

Bergen County? Yeah, I grew up in Paramus. My brother still lives there.

I currently live in Pompton Lakes. How long ago did you move? Route 287 was completed about 20 years ago. That's how I go north to CT or south to 78 then west to Sands (and save an hour in the process).

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Good observation on AC's slogan.

Now that you mention it, I's say it's a hybrid of NYC's "City That Never Sleeps" and Vegas' "Sin City." It's a lot better than their old slogan "America's Playground"...