Big Boom on the Boardwalk
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No one had anticipated the tidal wave of humanity which surged into Atlantic City after Resorts opened its doors in 1978. Gross profits at this one casino averaged over $600,000 per day, far higher than anyone of the larger las Vegas casinos.
e.R. Chambliss & T.e. Roginski, Playing Blackjack in Atlantic City.
The phenomenal growth in the casino industry that occurred in Nevada throughout the 1960s and ’70s as a direct result of the popularity of Ed Thorp’s Beat the Dealer, had the East Coast politicians and business leaders buzzing with plans to get casinos legalized in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere on the East Coast. So much gambling money was flying west to Vegas and Reno every day, a plan had to be hatched to keep those dollars closer to home.
In 1974, a referendum to legalize gambling in New Jersey failed, but a similar referendum that would limit the casinos to Atlantic City passed in 1976. Atlantic City had been chosen as the first East Coast gambling venue because the politicos felt, and rightly so, that the public would accept it. It was well located and had once been a popular vacation resort town, but had long since fallen on hard times. The oncefamous boardwalk was in disrepair, and the surrounding residential neighborhoods had become slums of broken-windowed tenements.
No one in the state could make an argument that casinos might destroy the neighborhood. The neighborhood was a pit of poverty and despair. Instead, the hope was that casinos might revitalize the town.
Posted on: Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 5:38 am 
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