Now, the Atlantic City, reeling from a small-money race, is on the cusp of some kind of redemption, with experts predicting the transformation of a Las Vegas-style aging beach town.
With East Coast gambling mecca East Coast reporting a yearly decline in gaming revenue since it opened its first casino there in 1978, at least three casino operators are pursuing luxury resorts in Atlantic City. 스포츠토토
Not surprisingly, their confidence comes from Las Vegas, where they didn’t always have a growing season.
On a year-on-year basis, strip revenues have fallen three times in the past two decades – 1996, 2001, and 2002. The biggest drop was only 2 percent in 2001, which is a result of the 9/11 attacks. In 1996, the Asian banking crisis hit stock markets around the world and hurt the high-yielding play on strips, resulting in a 1.4 percent drop.
The closest comparison to Atlantic City’s trend is the spread of tribal casinos in California, which is Streep’s largest supply market. And while some consumers may travel less Las Vegas as a result, Vegas cannot directly blame California casinos for slowing growth. In fact, there is evidence that easy access to gambling stimulates interest in Las Vegas, which hosts the largest poker tournament and offers more Icandy.
With only 11 casinos and only one built to Streep’s advanced standards in the last 15 years, Atlantic City is far from Las Vegas, no matter what the definition is.
When Boyd Gaming opened the Borgata Resort with MGM Mirage in 2003, the resort soon became the largest and most profitable revenue-generating facility in the city, with some of that growth coming at the expense of other casinos downtown. Additionally, the Borgata Resort is attracting new, more discriminatory customers who wouldn’t otherwise make the trip to the Atlantic City. Although some doubt that the city will be difficult to grow far beyond its roots as a gambling solution for day-trippers, due to its proximity to several gambling markets, others say that the city is gearing up for Las Vegas-style growth. Here’s what we have in store for the Atlantic City. • MGM Mirage is planning a $5 billion resort with at least 3,000 hotel rooms called City Center East. • Level Entertainment, with investment bank Morgan Stanley, is proposing an oceanfront resort with two hotel towers, each with 1,900 rooms. • Pinnacle Gaming, which bought and blew up Atlantic City’s old Sands casino, is envisioning a major resort here.
All of the players are related to Winn and his former company, Mirage Resort.
Pinnacle CEO Dan Lee was chief financial officer of Mirage Resorts, which was sold to MGM Grand in 2000. Kim Townsend of Pinnacle, which is leading the Atlantic City development, is another graduate of Mirage Resorts, participating in the opening of Mirage and Treasure Island. Level Entertainment is a new gaming company founded by Kevin DeSantis, a former executive at Trump Plaza and president of casino operations at Mirage, who started his career in Las Vegas. MGM Mirage took over from WIN, who sold the empty City Center land (as well as the land currently occupied by Borgata Resorts) at the exit of the Mirage Resorts.
There is already evidence that Borgata’s non-gaming appeal is motivating customers to stay more than one night, otherwise it may be enough to resolve the gamble quickly.
At Strip, where non-gaming spending accounts for nearly 50 percent of total spending, fancy dinners, expensive feasts, and elaborate entertainment are helping to offset only a modest increase in gambling income. In Atlantic City, nearly 80 percent of income comes from gambling, but in Vogueta, the number is as low as 65 percent.
Experts say the number is the best indicator that Atlantic City has developed as a resort.
At a combined rate of about 9 percent, New Jersey’s gaming tax is the second-lowest in the country, behind Nevada’s 6.75 percent. And if the Nevada teachers union gets its way, a statewide petition could raise Nevada’s gaming tax to 9.75 percent, putting the state at the financial forefront.
