ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Mayors and governors from across America used to call this the city of inequality. Gambling palaces entertained tourists while locals lived in slums.
Now the tables have turned. Twenty-six years after the first casino opened here, much of the Northeast is trying to mimic Atlantic City, which rebuilt its economy because of people who gambled and lost.
Gamblers dropped $4.49 billion in Atlantic City's 12 casinos last year. Perhaps a third of the unlucky players were from the Philadelphia area, an hour's drive away on a tree-shaded expressway.
Instead of letting those dollars cross the state line and disappear, Pennsylvania politicians hope to hold onto them by legalizing 14 parlors filled with slot machines.
Delaware legalized slot machines at racetracks, and New York is considering the idea. New York and Connecticut have casinos operated by American Indian tribes.
So Atlantic City, once denounced by those in political power, has become something of a model for state governments searching for money to the pay the bills.
But whether gambling was good for Atlantic City remains a point of contention.
Even though it has 40,000 residents and entertains up to 175,000 tourists a day, Atlantic City has no movie theater and one grocery store.
Pawnshops, though, are plentiful. These second-hand stores, which occupy corners near opulent casinos such as Caesars and Trump Plaza, all carry the same stark advertisement -- "cash for gold." Sell your wedding ring or your best bracelet and you can get another turn at the blackjack tables or slot machines.
To be sure, Atlantic City no longer is the idyllic beach town that inspired the board game Monopoly, invented saltwater taffy and attracted the Miss America Pageant.
But casinos saved the town and many of its people, said Michael Epps, 38, a lawyer and the first Atlantic City native to serve on the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.
"Absolutely, we are better off today because of gambling," Epps said. "Was it the only option? Probably not, but this was a good fit if you wanted to bring gambling to the East Coast."
Only Nevada had casinos when New Jersey voters legalized gambling for Atlantic City in 1976. The town was dying then. Conventioneers had been complaining about Atlantic City's shabbiness since 1964, when Democrats met here to nominate Lyndon B. Johnson for president.
"We had a 12-week economy with summer conventions and tourists visiting the beach," said Deputy Mayor Ernest Coursey, 42, who grew up in Atlantic City. "Everything used to die off after Labor Day."
After Atlantic City's first casino opened in 1978, visitors returned. But poverty surrounded the ornate gambling palaces, prompting critics to describe the casinos as taj mahals in a war zone.
Today, most of Atlantic City's blight has been erased. New houses fill the town's Northeast Inlet. More fresh housing is planned for the South Inlet, which has been cleared of shacks and rubble.
A 320,000-square-foot commercial development called The Walk has sprouted in Midtown, outside the casino district. This surprised longtime casino critics, who said the gambling industry would never allow new shops and restaurants to be built outside its walls.
More than 46,000 people work in Atlantic City's casinos and adjoining hotels, a total that exceeds even the most optimistic predictions of those who pushed to legalize gambling. The downside is that many employees earn minimum wage, and they fear displacement at the hands of subcontractors who might agree to work more cheaply.
"Gambling is not a panacea, but I think it was a unique fit for Atlantic City," Epps said. "This town has a different history than most, and it always had kind of a sin-city image. You cannot put gambling in, say, Pittsburgh, and expect the same results."
Denis Rudd, a professor at Robert Morris University who specializes in tourism and gambling, agreed. He said Atlantic City was a regional attraction that is on its way to becoming a destination resort. Pennsylvania's slot parlors will have no such drawing power.
Slot machines in the Pittsburgh area and throughout Pennsylvania, he said, would be dependent on local customers, not tourists. That may keep some gamblers from exporting their money to casinos in West Virginia or New York state, but it also will mean locals have less to spend on restaurants, Pirates games and other area diversions.
"Unfortunately, that's what we're going to get if gaming is local and stays local," Rudd said.
Epps said Pennsylvania posed no serious threat to Atlantic City's casino business. "Gambling in Pennsylvania might be like a local amusement park that would appeal to people in the area. Atlantic City is like Disney World."
Atlantic City saw its gambling revenues momentarily level off after Delaware launched its slots parlors in 1996 and Connecticut's tribal casinos opened during the past decade. Despite those blips and the increased competition, Atlantic City's casino revenues have risen each year, said Dan Heneghan, spokesman for the casino control commission.
Employment in the casinos and hotels has dipped slightly since its peak in 1997, but opportunities still abound for people who want to work, Deputy Mayor Coursey said.
He was just out of high school in 1981 when he got his first job in a casino hotel. He made minimum wage, but pocketed between $100 and $150 a day in tips.
"At 18, it seemed like all the money in the world to me," Coursey said. "It also taught me that you could make it at a casino. You get paid every day."
Coursey later clawed his way onto the Atlantic City Council after three losing campaigns. Various scandals linked to casinos have tarred city government during the past quarter century, but he remains an unabashed fan of the industry.
Young people who formerly would have left Atlantic City can now make a living and buy a home in the place they grew up, he said. All but one of his nine brothers and sisters remain close by.
Casino taxes support the town, supplying 80 percent of Atlantic City's $170 million budget. Forty-one percent of the money pays for police and firefighters.
Coursey said the heavy emphasis on public safety was essential in a casino town. It also created more opportunities for locals. Four of his brothers, for instance, got jobs with the fire department.
With time, Atlantic City's wild land speculation, in which absentee owners held onto rundown properties in hopes of making a huge sale to a casino company, eased.
"People were playing real-life Monopoly, waiting for a jackpot," Epps said. "In the meantime, the city looked blighted, but that has changed, too."
Most dilapidated properties gradually were bought by developers or the state's Urban Renewal Authority, enabling Atlantic City to weed out its worst buildings.
Atlantic City now has almost 15,000 hotel rooms, meaning it can attract gamblers and tourists for days at a time. Hotel occupancy rates run in excess of 90 percent. Heneghan said the statistic was attributable in part to the casino industry's practice of giving away rooms to lure moneyed gamblers.
Because Atlantic City sees its chance to become a destination resort, on par with Las Vegas, growth outside the gambling areas is not just possible. Suddenly, such development is likely.
"All good things take time," Epps said. "You can't get a bottom-line company to come in and immediately start fixing up the town 13 blocks away. But now it's happening."
The old Atlantic City, with its close-knit families, hometown restaurants and seaside amusements, is mostly a memory. In its place is something glitzier and grittier.
"It's not a town like it was," Rudd said. "Gambling has taken over. But that's what they wanted."
Even if locals did not want a city dominated by gambling, that is what they got. The Atlantic City of 2004 is like a patient who underwent surgery and woke up a completely different person.
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Now the tables have turned. Twenty-six years after the first casino opened here, much of the Northeast is trying to mimic Atlantic City, which rebuilt its economy because of people who gambled and lost.
Gamblers dropped $4.49 billion in Atlantic City's 12 casinos last year. Perhaps a third of the unlucky players were from the Philadelphia area, an hour's drive away on a tree-shaded expressway.
Instead of letting those dollars cross the state line and disappear, Pennsylvania politicians hope to hold onto them by legalizing 14 parlors filled with slot machines.
Delaware legalized slot machines at racetracks, and New York is considering the idea. New York and Connecticut have casinos operated by American Indian tribes.
So Atlantic City, once denounced by those in political power, has become something of a model for state governments searching for money to the pay the bills.
But whether gambling was good for Atlantic City remains a point of contention.
Even though it has 40,000 residents and entertains up to 175,000 tourists a day, Atlantic City has no movie theater and one grocery store.
Pawnshops, though, are plentiful. These second-hand stores, which occupy corners near opulent casinos such as Caesars and Trump Plaza, all carry the same stark advertisement -- "cash for gold." Sell your wedding ring or your best bracelet and you can get another turn at the blackjack tables or slot machines.
To be sure, Atlantic City no longer is the idyllic beach town that inspired the board game Monopoly, invented saltwater taffy and attracted the Miss America Pageant.
But casinos saved the town and many of its people, said Michael Epps, 38, a lawyer and the first Atlantic City native to serve on the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.
"Absolutely, we are better off today because of gambling," Epps said. "Was it the only option? Probably not, but this was a good fit if you wanted to bring gambling to the East Coast."
Only Nevada had casinos when New Jersey voters legalized gambling for Atlantic City in 1976. The town was dying then. Conventioneers had been complaining about Atlantic City's shabbiness since 1964, when Democrats met here to nominate Lyndon B. Johnson for president.
"We had a 12-week economy with summer conventions and tourists visiting the beach," said Deputy Mayor Ernest Coursey, 42, who grew up in Atlantic City. "Everything used to die off after Labor Day."
After Atlantic City's first casino opened in 1978, visitors returned. But poverty surrounded the ornate gambling palaces, prompting critics to describe the casinos as taj mahals in a war zone.
Today, most of Atlantic City's blight has been erased. New houses fill the town's Northeast Inlet. More fresh housing is planned for the South Inlet, which has been cleared of shacks and rubble.
A 320,000-square-foot commercial development called The Walk has sprouted in Midtown, outside the casino district. This surprised longtime casino critics, who said the gambling industry would never allow new shops and restaurants to be built outside its walls.
More than 46,000 people work in Atlantic City's casinos and adjoining hotels, a total that exceeds even the most optimistic predictions of those who pushed to legalize gambling. The downside is that many employees earn minimum wage, and they fear displacement at the hands of subcontractors who might agree to work more cheaply.
"Gambling is not a panacea, but I think it was a unique fit for Atlantic City," Epps said. "This town has a different history than most, and it always had kind of a sin-city image. You cannot put gambling in, say, Pittsburgh, and expect the same results."
Denis Rudd, a professor at Robert Morris University who specializes in tourism and gambling, agreed. He said Atlantic City was a regional attraction that is on its way to becoming a destination resort. Pennsylvania's slot parlors will have no such drawing power.
Slot machines in the Pittsburgh area and throughout Pennsylvania, he said, would be dependent on local customers, not tourists. That may keep some gamblers from exporting their money to casinos in West Virginia or New York state, but it also will mean locals have less to spend on restaurants, Pirates games and other area diversions.
"Unfortunately, that's what we're going to get if gaming is local and stays local," Rudd said.
Epps said Pennsylvania posed no serious threat to Atlantic City's casino business. "Gambling in Pennsylvania might be like a local amusement park that would appeal to people in the area. Atlantic City is like Disney World."
Atlantic City saw its gambling revenues momentarily level off after Delaware launched its slots parlors in 1996 and Connecticut's tribal casinos opened during the past decade. Despite those blips and the increased competition, Atlantic City's casino revenues have risen each year, said Dan Heneghan, spokesman for the casino control commission.
Employment in the casinos and hotels has dipped slightly since its peak in 1997, but opportunities still abound for people who want to work, Deputy Mayor Coursey said.
He was just out of high school in 1981 when he got his first job in a casino hotel. He made minimum wage, but pocketed between $100 and $150 a day in tips.
"At 18, it seemed like all the money in the world to me," Coursey said. "It also taught me that you could make it at a casino. You get paid every day."
Coursey later clawed his way onto the Atlantic City Council after three losing campaigns. Various scandals linked to casinos have tarred city government during the past quarter century, but he remains an unabashed fan of the industry.
Young people who formerly would have left Atlantic City can now make a living and buy a home in the place they grew up, he said. All but one of his nine brothers and sisters remain close by.
Casino taxes support the town, supplying 80 percent of Atlantic City's $170 million budget. Forty-one percent of the money pays for police and firefighters.
Coursey said the heavy emphasis on public safety was essential in a casino town. It also created more opportunities for locals. Four of his brothers, for instance, got jobs with the fire department.
With time, Atlantic City's wild land speculation, in which absentee owners held onto rundown properties in hopes of making a huge sale to a casino company, eased.
"People were playing real-life Monopoly, waiting for a jackpot," Epps said. "In the meantime, the city looked blighted, but that has changed, too."
Most dilapidated properties gradually were bought by developers or the state's Urban Renewal Authority, enabling Atlantic City to weed out its worst buildings.
Atlantic City now has almost 15,000 hotel rooms, meaning it can attract gamblers and tourists for days at a time. Hotel occupancy rates run in excess of 90 percent. Heneghan said the statistic was attributable in part to the casino industry's practice of giving away rooms to lure moneyed gamblers.
Because Atlantic City sees its chance to become a destination resort, on par with Las Vegas, growth outside the gambling areas is not just possible. Suddenly, such development is likely.
"All good things take time," Epps said. "You can't get a bottom-line company to come in and immediately start fixing up the town 13 blocks away. But now it's happening."
The old Atlantic City, with its close-knit families, hometown restaurants and seaside amusements, is mostly a memory. In its place is something glitzier and grittier.
"It's not a town like it was," Rudd said. "Gambling has taken over. But that's what they wanted."
Even if locals did not want a city dominated by gambling, that is what they got. The Atlantic City of 2004 is like a patient who underwent surgery and woke up a completely different person.
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