It seemed like a good idea. Atlantic City, New Jersey was quickly becoming a forgotten backwater, so to bring it around, the powers that be decided to build casinos. The reincarnation of Atlantic City began in 1978.
And all went swimmingly for awhile. AC offered the only non-Indian gambling outside Las Vegas. Great, grand casinos were built, equipped, staffed, and visited. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the area was knee-deep in the moolah and *some* of the residents of the city prospered.
Did the powers-that-be ever look up from those money-soaked years and ponder the possibility that casino gambling might become legal elsewhere? Because that is exactly what has happened. If you live in Philadelphia, why would you drive to Atlantic City when there's Sugar House practically at your back door?
Atlantic City's casinos are closing like dominoes. The most notable bankruptcy is Revel, the casino lately made famous as the site where egg-sucking-dog football players beat up their girlfriends.
To date, three casinos have closed and two more are preparing to close. Total job loss: 10,000 people.
So, what happens now? What a mad mess! Our fearless idiot governor issued an edict to allow sports betting. You know, like the kind you can do from your computer, in your Barcalounger.
Who's going to save Atlantic City this time?
Well, I'll do my part. I liked Atlantic City better before they built all those butt-ugly behemoth casinos. I'll go. But I'm only one person ... a person who goes there because the beaches are free.
What happens to AC now? What happens to the people who worked there who now have no jobs?
5 comments:
Las Vegas has survived the onslaught of gambling-everywhere because at least it's a warm winter getaway for those of us suffering through the snow and cold. Atlantic City has no such charms, alas.
well, that sucks..I keep hoping that Texas will allow gambling and legalize marijuana..we'd be in the win column in a year.
As a wee lad my mom took me to a church of the hellfire variety. I endured with her many sermons. The only one that I remember that still resonates with me is the one in which he lambasted the legalization of gambling (aka PA Lottery) in our state. Truly, gambling is a tax on the poor and the credulous.
But... I do remember fun-filled youthful trips to AC to gamble at Harrah's $2 Black Jack tables. (I'm old, right?) And my aunt and uncle LIVED for their occasional day trips to gamble in AC... from Harrisburg!! So it's a mixed bag, this "gambling as economic development" thing.
GAMBLING ON A COMPUTER SCREEN? The horror!!!
My heart goes out to these 10,000 newly unemployed workers.
I've never been to AC but I've always wanted to go. It might be because I watched Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken a gazillion times as a child.
I actually liked Atlantic City better before the casinos. But that dates me, by golly.
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