Atlantic City Feeling the Pinch from All Sides

Atlantic City feels like it is being pushed around, from every angle. First Pennsylvania approved slot machines and casinos; then, if that weren’t enough, the city council started pushing to make their casinos smoke free. The AC casinos say they just can’t catch a break.

The city council has approved a measure that will only allow smoking in 25% of the casino, which the casino industry says is just insane. They say that this is the time to be making the casinos more gambler friendly so that they don’t lose their business to Pennsylvania. However, the city council disagreed.

Slot machines and gambling are a $5.2 billion industry in the state, and now Pennsylvania is taking a big chunk of that revenue. They already have three racetracks open, and they have more coming. They also allow smoking in their casinos. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board says that the amount of revenue that has already come in from their slot machines has been much higher than they originally expected at this point.

In contrast, Atlantic City has already seen a 2.9% decline in their revenue, which means the PA slot machines are already having an impact on them, and that is with only three open. The casinos show that the amount of slot machine revenue alone is down 3.1% while table games are slightly up. Many feel this is because Pennsylvania does not allow table games yet.
 

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