Atlantic City casinos closing...

I visited Atlantic City just once circa 1971. It was only about a 2 hour drive for me and I was just wandering. My recollection today is of disappointment at how played out and worn down the whole place seemed. I assumed that I was seeing the skeletal remnant of a former beauty. It was like a town bypassed by the new interstate and left to wither. Or today's metaphor of an American downtown depleted and destroyed by the arrival of WalMart.

My guess is that the great resort city was superseded and rendered obsolete by the introduction of affordable air travel. No doubt New Jersey's notorious family enterprises managed to get gambling legalized so they could take advantage of cheap property values and a central location, between NYC and Philly, to create an East Coast Las Vegas. Apparently it worked for a time, until gambling spread everywhere and once again rendered Atlantic City obsolete. Maybe it will be revived again with legal prostitution or marijuana. Maybe they'll just have to settle for the Chris Christie Archives and Museum. Or a New Jersey Politicians Hall of Fame named for Hugh Addonizio.

As a kid our family took our vacations in Ocean City just South of AC. It was a very nice place. It has been well over 40 years since our last family gathering there. Last time I was in AC was within a few years after Resorts, Harrahs, Playboy Club and the Golden Nugget were the name gamers, over 30 years ago. What was so striking was the boardwalk area and the rest of the city which was squalid and seedy much like I always remembered that place. It seems that greed always overtakes hope in the long run but then again hope was short lived after reality set in for those that live or lived in AC during those times and now.

"My guess is that the great resort city was superseded and rendered obsolete by the introduction of affordable air travel. No doubt New Jersey's notorious family enterprises managed to get gambling legalized so they could take advantage of cheap property values and a central location, between NYC and Philly, to create an East Coast Las Vegas. Apparently it worked for a time, until gambling spread everywhere and once again rendered Atlantic City obsolete. Maybe it will be revived again with legal prostitution or marijuana. Maybe they'll just have to settle for the Chris Christie Archives and Museum. Or a New Jersey Politicians Hall of Fame named for Hugh Addonizio."

It was a good idea, but they just put it in a very bad place. The city of AC was, and still is, as disaster. You have the hotels and the boardwalk, but that's it. Its not like Vegas where you can walk around and do stuff besides gambling. People are afraid to walk around in AC.

I grew up playing cards and I played in lots of AC casinos mainly at poker tables. Once I lost the job, I had to jump on to the taxi and one day found a passenger all the way to AC from NYC. When I dropped passenger and invested part of fare onto the large (near 1500 players) tournament at Borgata poker room and stayed there till the break to the next day with descent stack to move further. Than end of next day I reached the final table, took home large prise and dropped taxi to the garage and never returned back behind the wheel. All I did is to claim unemployment check and make my necessary living conservatively mainly at limit tables, but sometimes would allocate liquid funds towards tournaments periodically.
New Parx poker palace and casino is super as well and it obviously took part of Pennsilvanians, Philly residents there instead so AC with it's large casino arsenal has lost quite a chunk of players going now to Parx at shorter distance.

Sorry to disappoint those who feel it's another chance to blame the economy, but my fellow Fluffian, Bifwynne nailed it.

Up until several years ago, AC served as the only place to gamble. Aside from internet gambling, we now have access to more than a dozen new casinos outside of Atlantic City. Everyone knew the impact would hit the shore, with casualties coming out of it.