Atlantic City Attracts the Young and In-Crowd

Filed in archive Casinos on December 28, 2005

For years, Atlantic City has been seen as a mecca for the blue-rinse brigade. Bus-loads of little old ladies lining up ready to attack the thousands of slots on offer at the boardwalk's casino.

Put it another way, Atlantic City's image as the Vegas of the east coast, sucked.

But apparantly thats not so anymore. Since the opening of the Borgata in 2003, which advertised itself as sexy and fun, instead of pushing its gambling, Atlantic City is seeing a new generation of partygoers attracted to the trendy clubs, music and high end restaurants.

The Borgata also realised that table games were the way to go - rather than slots which was always the bread and butter of the traditional casinos - and the gamble paid off as it was the most profitable casino in town

Its rivals in Atlantic City's $4.8 billion-a-year casino business have followed suit, replacing slots with table games aimed at cashing in on both a poker boom and on younger gamblers' tendencies to favor games with human interaction.

"Tables are hot, there's no doubt about it," said casino industry consultant Joe Weinert. "A lot of that is fueled by poker's popularity and its popularity on TV, which is showing Americans that table games in general are fun.

"Increasingly, we're becoming a society that has grown up with solitary gaming experiences on their computers, TV sets or personal game consoles. And I think people are going to casinos and discovering the community atmosphere on the gaming tables. They're finding out that, hey, it's fun to be around real people."

In the 2 1/2 years since Borgata's opening, the Tropicana Casino and Resort has seen a 20 percent increase in table game play among under-50 gamblers.

Resorts Atlantic City _ which in the past year has booked rapper Snoop Dogg, opened a trendy Nikki Beach bar and switched its piped-in house music from Motown to contemporary _ has experienced a similar shift. Now, 60 percent of the gamblers in the casino's player database are under 50, compared with 39 percent 18 months ago

Strangely though - the Borgata is not on the boardwalk - its over at the other end of town and you need to get a cab, car or bus to get there. But maybe that is the secret to its success

Article: Atlantic City suddenly hip with younger crowd