Atlantic City Casino Revenue Falls To $3.57bn In 2010

Since hitting a $5.2 billion peak in 2006, Atlantic City’s casinos have continued four years of steady decline to reach $3.57 billion of revenue in 2010.
Although last year’s 9.6% fall was below the record 13% drop in 2009, the dismal situation has left Atlantic City’s casinos struggling to survive, with 6 of the 11 casinos having had to restructure their debt or declare bankruptcy during the economic crisis.
If that wasn’t bad enough, there would seem to be little hope for improvement just yet with casino consulting firm Spectrum Gaming Group predicting more bad news for the year ahead. As Spectrum explains:
“Our projection of $3.1 billion in gaming revenue for Atlantic City in 2011 is down 40.8 percent, or a staggering $2.13 billion, from its historical peak year of 2006.”
The main reason for Atlantic City’s decline as a gambling resort has been put down mostly to the economic crisis, which has also lead many of its neighbouring state’s to seek to fill the extra gap in their budgets with increased gambling revenue. The long list of new competitors to Atlantic City now include Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, as well as West Virginia.
2011 is now being viewed as a pivotal year for Atlantic City as it wrestles to regain lost tax revenue from its one time thriving gambling industry.
Amongst the list of ideas to give the City a much needed boost include reduced regulations for gambling halls and allowing casinos to accept online gambling on games such as blackjack and poker.
However, the building of megaresorts and the authorisation of a tourism district around the casinos, with plenty of nongaming attractions is widely being touted as a major step towards Atlantic City evolving into a full-service resorts.
As Israel Posner, from the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming explains:
“I think it becomes clear that those megaresorts in Atlantic City and all the retail and entertainment they offer are really a beacon for how you move forward. I think it’s going to be a pivotal year for Atlantic City, with its transformation into the type of regional gaming destination that we have all been talking about.”
Whether these list of measures will be enough to turn around Atlantic City’s ailing fortunes in 2011 should become apparent over the coming months.