New Jersey state takeover of AC

[kewljason]

As Govenor Christie announced details of his state take over of Atlantic City this morning, there were a couple things I found interesting.

1.) Gaming enforecement would be streamlined, stripping away years of over regualtion, hoping to copy gambling rules in Nevada.

2.) Stressed the need for a cleaner and safer Atlantic City. The state would provide security to the casino and boardwalk areas rather than the ACPD. (anyone who walks the boardwalk late at night or during the winter months can appreciate this)

3.) Support and possible state involvement in the stalled Revel project, which he deems as instramental to the future sucess of AC.

anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Automatic Monkey]

1) More flexibility in the kinds of games they can offer would be a good thing. They'd be more likely to try out new (beatable, for us) games and bets if the initial paperwork burden wasn't as high. Hopefully it will not affect the NJ court decision prohibiting barring skilled players.

2) The Boardwalk and Pacific Ave. are already relatively safe. The rest of the city is dangerous, but I would attribute it more to police indifference and corruption than lack of resources, so letting state troopers take over the Boardwalk would only allow ACPD to divert to the rest of the town to continue ignoring or cooperating with drug dealers. If anything, leaving the Boardwalk to the troopers will degrade law enforcement there, because they won't be as familiar with the bad actors from in town as the ACPD officers are.

3) Revel is dead for reasons beyond the bad conditions in AC. AC's biggest problems are the terrible service that pervades the city due to the attitudes of the townies, and the lack of reasonable transportation there.

 

[kewljason]

Well I don't think the govenor has the authority to change the New Jersey Supreme Court decision. Not directly anyway. But I don't beleive that decison does players any favors anyway. It just meant that the casinos protected their games by offering inferior games with lousy rules. Wasn't that ruling about the time they got rid of surrender?

I agree with your sentiment concerning revel. Tax breaks and abatements aren't going to save that project. I truely beleive it will sit there as is for 5-10 years and then eventually be torn down, never have opened. But let's say they did receive some additional financing and complete the project. Does it really bring new business to AC? I think it would just re-distribute AC's shrinking peice of the pie, at the expense of some of the other already struggling houses.

 

[melbedewy]

3 easy no-brainers

1. Free Parking
2. Free Parking
3. Free Parking

 

[jerseyjon]

In addition to the problems in AC there is talk of closing down Meadowlands and Monmouth Park. In the states mis-guided efforts to protect AC's gambling monopoly (no pun intended), they have opened the door for NY and PA to siphon off the players and the money. The race tracks should have had slots at least if not full casinos to keep the players in state. I'm 2 hours from AC. I'm 30 minutes from Parx, 1 hour from Sands in PA and 1 hour from Meadowlands and Monmouth. It would have been great to have the otion to gamble in state w/out having to travel to AC. A full casino at meadowlands would have pulled in a lot of NY people who have been going to Sands.

 

[21forme]

In the states mis-guided efforts to protect AC's gambling monopoly (no pun intended), they have opened the door for NY and PA to siphon off the players and the money.

The only ones who have lead to the demise of AC are the AC casinos with sh*t games and poor paybacks on machines. It reminds me of the American car industry of the last 20-30 years - they thought they had no competition, produced an inferior product, and did not react when the competition produced a better product.

 

[shadroch]

The only ones who have lead to the demise of AC are the AC casinos with sh*t games and poor paybacks on machines. It reminds me of the American car industry of the last 20-30 years - they thought they had no competition, produced an inferior product, and did not react when the competition produced a better product.

I'm going to disagree with that. The increased competition and their smoking policies have hurt them much more than any poor paybacks did. Take yonkers Raceway, as an example. It has terrible payouts, and no real video poker, but its packed to the gills everyday. Why? It's the only game in town.
Most New Yorkers that frequent it used to go to AC. Why'd they switch? Proximity would be the number one answer.
For many years, AC had a monopoly on gambling on the East Coast, drawing from a population of about seventy five million whitin easy driving range. Now it has multiple competitors in that area.

 

[bigplayer]

Well I don't think the govenor has the authority to change the New Jersey Supreme Court decision. Not directly anyway. But I don't beleive that decison does players any favors anyway. It just meant that the casinos protected their games by offering inferior games with lousy rules. Wasn't that ruling about the time they got rid of surrender?

I agree with your sentiment concerning revel. Tax breaks and abatements aren't going to save that project. I truely beleive it will sit there as is for 5-10 years and then eventually be torn down, never have opened. But let's say they did receive some additional financing and complete the project. Does it really bring new business to AC? I think it would just re-distribute AC's shrinking peice of the pie, at the expense of some of the other already struggling houses.

The games in AC are on the whole not any worse than Nevada. Casinos can offer late surrender if they wish, there is nothing prohibiting it, and at least one casino still gives "known customers" the late surrender rule. The competitive environment is what determines game quality. Games got better when Borgata came to town and with more competition from PA and DE they may get better still. I would not be surprised to see at least half of the casinos offering late surrender by this time in 2011.

 

[Tico]

The games in AC are on the whole not any worse than Nevada. Casinos can offer late surrender if they wish, there is nothing prohibiting it, and at least one casino still gives "known customers" the late surrender rule. The competitive environment is what determines game quality. Games got better when Borgata came to town and with more competition from PA and DE they may get better still. I would not be surprised to see at least half of the casinos offering late surrender by this time in 2011.

Don't let the "baits" (aka the surrender option or so call good games) fool you in AC. For instances, 1) the casino (#3 in the marina district) makes you go through hoops before it offers you the surrender option. 2) The casino (#1 by the Sea) offers the double-deck-game, but its bj rules & pens suck big times. 3) The casino (#3 by the beach) offers the best bj games on Boardwalk (i.e., $25, S-17, a pit full of six-deckers, 24/7), but its pitcritters quickly restrict APs at the max-bet of 50 bucks .

 

[WABJ11]

I never understood why AC casinos don't offer more competitive games with better rules or lower the table minimums to attract more customers. It was very clever of the Hilton to start offering DD, it was the only reason that got me in the door.

The legislature could wise up on the regulation too. Not making it so difficult to get new games in the door and allowing sportsbooks.

They are not the only city with gambling anymore, and it's time they woke up and realized this fact.

 

[shadroch]

I never understood why AC casinos don't offer more competitive games with better rules or lower the table minimums to attract more customers. It was very clever of the Hilton to start offering DD, it was the only reason that got me in the door.

The legislature could wise up on the regulation too. Not making it so difficult to get new games in the door and allowing sportsbooks.

They are not the only city with gambling anymore, and it's time they woke up and realized this fact.

Isn't it the Federal government that won't allow spoerts betting?

 

[bj bob]

Isn't it the Federal government that won't allow spoerts betting?

You're right , Shad. It was the federal P.A.S.P.A.Law enacted in 1992. Delaware, however, is one of 4 states exempted.

 

[shadroch]

You're right , Shad. It was the federal P.A.S.P.A.Law enacted in 1992. Delaware, however, is one of 4 states exempted.

We are discussing AC, no? Is NJ exempted, as well? Which four states are exempted?

 

[bj bob]

We are discussing AC, no? Is NJ exempted, as well? Which four states are exempted?

No, NJ isn't exempted; however the reason I brought it up was that Delaware is the reason that NJ is raising hell. They don't appreciate Delaware's "unfair" advantage right next door. The other 3 states, BTW are Nevada (obviously), Oregon and Montana.