Gaming Guru

Atlantic City Makes the Right Choices? WRONG!

It never ends. The complaints from long-time Atlantic City players just keep coming! They all basically fall into the same category, summed up in three words one of which is a curse.

Wouldn't you think in a bad economy that's hurting your bottom line the Atlantic City casinos would look to bring in some players by offering good deals? Wouldn't you think with the slot parlors in Pennsylvania killing your bottom line in slot revenue that you'd make your slots much, much looser than those in Pennsylvania and let the world know about it? Wouldn't you think the Atlantic City table games would become the best in the nation to lure East Coast gamblers who usually go to Vegas?

I would think so too.

But obviously the head executives who run the casinos think the opposite. Comps are being cut like crazy in many AC casinos. The table games may have some lower minimums but the blackjack games are almost all hitting soft 17s with eight decks predominant on the main floors and six decks predominant in the high roller rooms. You'd think with deep cuts the casinos would win more money at blackjack, right? Wrong. The cuts have not improved much.

Why won't the casinos do the right thing and literally save themselves? Tropicana, the Hilton, Trump Plaza, Trump Marina, Resorts -- all of them may face extinction if they keep going the way they are going. Why not save yourself?

We can answer that easily: Why didn't GM, Ford, Chrysler, AIG, Merrill Lynch, the banks and all the rest of the big companies do the right thing? Because the same types of people who ran them also run the casinos -- make that, also run the casinos into the ground. Some folks like to call these executives "bean counters," but they are more like "bean-thrower-awayers."

Atlantic City will survive, although some of the casinos might not, but the looking glass seems pretty foggy in terms of its future now. The Queen of the Sea could drowning.