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ATLANTIC CITY - George Toth, chief executive officer of the Mount Airy Casino Resort, already knows how many table games he will have and where he will put his brand new poker room.

"From the day they say table games are legal in Pennsylvania, we can be operational in three to six months," Toth said eagerly.

Now he's got his approval. Pennsylvania lawmakers reached a budget deal Friday night that will legalize table games, opening the door for an estimated $200 million in extra gambling fees and taxes annually for the cash-starved commonwealth.

State officials say blackjack, roulette, poker, craps and other table games should be introduced in about six to nine months - a little slower than Toth's ambitious timetable - once the regulatory system is completed.

While table games are a potential boon for Pennsylvania, the prospect of the state's slot parlors becoming full-fledged casinos is more bad news for Atlantic City in what has been a dismal year for the resort's gambling industry.

Competitors already are smelling blood.

"This makes us full gaming houses," Toth said. "We can compete with Atlantic City on equal footing. This is what we've been waiting for."

Toth once helped attract gamblers to Atlantic City when he was the president of the old Sands Casino Hotel. Now his job is to draw customers to his casino in the heart of the Pocono Mountains.

He predicts that table games will allow the Pennsylvania casinos to steal even more gamblers from Atlantic City's crucial feeder markets of New York and northern New Jersey.

"Our customer database from New York will skyrocket," he said. "I'm only 75 minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel."

Thomas Blanton, a 51-year-old blackjack and roulette player from New York, winced when he described the long bus ride from his home to Atlantic City. Noting that the trip to Pennsylvania would be much shorter for him, he said the introduction of table games would be the final push to get him to try the casinos there.

"I would definitely go there. It would save me a three-hour bus trip to Atlantic City," Blanton said in an interview at Caesars Atlantic City.

Just down the Boardwalk at Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, craps player-turned-slot machine gambler Shirley Robinson said she would probably try her luck again at the gaming tables as soon as Pennsylvania expands its gambling. Robinson, 75, of Philadelphia, lives within an easy drive of the casinos in eastern Pennsylvania.

"We will probably stay closer to home to gamble now," she said. "If it's just for an evening or even a weekend of gambling, we will go to Pennsylvania. But if it's for a few nights, then we'll come here."

One Atlantic City gaming executive said the casinos must respond to table games in Pennsylvania by adding more nongaming amenities that will broaden the tourist market beyond gambling. He mentioned museums and aquariums as the types of attractions that are needed to transform Atlantic City into more of a year-round tourist destination.

"It's got to be planned in the next three to five years or Atlantic City will face additional problems. The last thing we need are more hotel rooms or casinos," said Nicholas L. Ribis, CEO of the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort and sister property Resorts Atlantic City.

Analysts believe the older, smaller casinos such as the Hilton and Resorts will be most vulnerable from extra competition in Pennsylvania. Both properties are already struggling with financial problems. Resorts has agreed to be taken over by its lenders after it defaulted on its mortgage and the Hilton disclosed recently that it is negotiating with its lenders after falling behind on its loan payments.

About 30 percent of Atlantic City's $4.9 billion of gaming revenue last year came from table games. The recession and already fierce competition from slot parlors in Pennsylvania and New York have driven down Atlantic City gaming revenue by 15 percent through the first eight months this year.

Robert A. LaFleur, gaming analyst for Susquehanna Financial Group, predicted table games in Pennsylvania will cause Atlantic City casino revenue to fall an extra 4 percent overall and 12.5 percent on the table games side.

"Clearly, this development would accelerate the structural decline of the Atlantic City market and will not be welcomed by those operators," LaFleur wrote in a new research report.

Upscale properties such as Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa should take less of a hit because the Pennsylvania gaming halls don't have the hotel rooms and luxury amenities to rival Atlantic City's largest resorts, LaFleur said. But analysts believe table games could be the catalyst for new Atlantic City-style hotel rooms, restaurants and entertainment in Pennsylvania.

LaFleur estimates that about 25 percent of Atlantic City's visitors come from New York and another 22 to 25 percent from Pennsylvania. Table games will put Pennsylvania in a stronger position to siphon off a larger chunk of Atlantic City's customer base.

"The addition of tables will be impactful and take away a competitive advantage from Atlantic City," LaFleur wrote.

Pauline Flannery, 74, and her 54-year-old daughter, Debra Flannery, both of Lodi, Bergen County, said the lack of table games has been the main thing stopping them from checking out the Pennsylvania casinos.

"We don't go there because they only have slots," Pauline Flannery said during a gambling break at Caesars. "If they get table games, I will try it."

Debra Flannery noted the time they would save driving to Pennsylvania instead of Atlantic City.

"This is a drive of two hours and 15 minutes," she said. "Pennsylvania would be an hour and 10 minutes. So it's about half the time. We will definitely be going there now."

E-mail Donald Wittkowski:

DWittkowski@pressofac.com

40 comments:

• NfieldGuy (1) posts 11:36 am

  Let's face it..the ONLY way this city is going to make a "come-back" is if they discover gold or oil under it. What's more...the casino companies are like most American companies...nomadic. ************************************************** Like a horde of locusts they have tapped all the wealth that was here and moved to more profitable markets. Try as they did to make them improve the town (while they were here)..well...AC and NJ had 30 years to do that. The casino corporations have made enough to pay their executives handsomely and profited enough to use those monies to open elsewhere. ************************************************** Like most big companies they will move elsewhere to reap the benefits of cheap labor and a new market (of gamblers)...when those casino become unprofitable they will move again...they will not "cross-subsidize" unprofitable casinos with the profitable ones...theses buildings are worth more as scrap material now...and so it goes. ************************************************* If you want to make money on gambling..buy gambling stock or go into to gaming consulting business (see "Spectrum Gaming")

• scittman (3) posts 9:08 pm

  George Toth is an idiot and will bring down that casino, as he finally put the final nail in the Sands casino coffin, and after he ruins the casino he is at now he will move on and be hired by a lover or friend and ruin that Casino also That is what happened in Ac Casinos, its not what you know but who you know NO CREATIVITY!!!!!!!!!!!!

• scittman (3) posts 8:53 pm

  George Toth is an idiot and will bring down that casino, as he finally put the final nail in the Sands casino coffin, and after he ruins the casino he is at now he will move on and be hired by a lover or friend and ruin that Casino also That is what happened in Ac Casinos, its not what you know but who you know NO CREATIVITY!!!!!!!!!!!!

• weisenthal (293) posts 4:27 pm

  Don't forget that Delaware is getting table games, and if all this isn't enough, Maryland is going to have over 50,000 slots at several different locations, most poised to keep travelers who used to come here from coming up 95 to the Del. Memorial bridge. Meanwhile, Atlantic City is being looted by thugs who stole elections, are filling their pockets at this very moment, in full view of the media, with no action by the proper authorities, no action to entice business and building, besides their pay-to-play pals schemes that are causing Langford's funding, and the merry old world goes round and round. We facing very bad times ahead. This could be slowed greatly by getting rid of the racist thieves and voting in the young Kurtz, who would shake up the status-quo like a 8 point quake. You could help, but will you? Past history has shown that you won't. You'll sit and fret over the outrage we endure, thinking there's nothing to be done, when you could simply get out there in November and GET RID OF THAT LYING RACIST THIEF, call neighbors and inform them of their unique opportunity to elect an honest and competant man to change the horror we live with now. Think about it.

• MikeElbedewy (22) posts 8:31 am

  PA does suck, But AC sucks more. Does anyone really think people are going to spend gas money plus $10 (round trip) in tolls plus $5 to park for the "privelege" of playing the EXACT SAME table games and slots??? AC is nice for one overnight trip in the summer and that's IT.

• RandomX856 (159) posts 9:59 pm

  todfiat- Ok, you're right... you have a heartbeat (life). You're just an unemployed loser who has nothing better to do all day except post comments on the press of a.c.'s website.

• todfiat (0) posts 7:08 pm

  Random: you're new around here, aintcha? as the other scribes are painfully aware, i have far more posts than a mere 800 +/-, if one includes those thrown over the cyber-transom by my doppelganger, and ones the Press deletes when the Peanut Gallery(tm) whines. Each of the 800 +/- dead soldiers carried his own weight till the end ("sold by weight, not volume," as my Wheaties box says.) What is more, I have "a life", or i would be "the ghost who posts," wot! (Concededly it's a tightly circumscribed life, but not in stir, and no GPS ankle bracelet.) Anything else I can do to enlighten U, give a holler. Auf weidersehn!

• RandomX856 (159) posts 3:22 pm

  todfiat- The fact that you've had time to make 791 comments in this forum, which only started keeping count several months ago, prooves you have no life. Your racist comments proove you to be white trash. I'll bet any amount of money that you live EAST of the NJ turnpike but are originally from Pennsylvania... whose family came over here back in the day to escape Philly crime.

• todfiat (0) posts 1:45 pm

  Call up 1000 Americans in the South and West who have no dog in the fight. Ask them where they'd prefer to live: New Jersey, or Pennsylvania? (they largely think NJ is next to Staten Island, and the 6th borough of NYC) Guess who wins? NJ is too broke, too many minorities, too much Mafia and bribed politicians; a memorable, adulterous, homo Governor; EXORBITANT taxes; ubiquitous tolls; it's largely paved-over; no death penalty; minor snow-skiing, only 2 major-league sports teams, and a whiny liberal heavily Jewish populace which flees to Florida for much of the year. The final irony: 1000s of high school graduates from NJ go to college in...... Pennsylvania. NJ & Your Taxes: Perfect Together. A.C. - Always Turned On!!! LMAO!

• Grampy (32) posts 1:06 pm

  I look forward to playing Black Jack in Pennsylvania. It will be nice having attentive friendly dealers instead of the crybaby UAW wannabes in AC.

• PennsylvaniaSucks (109) posts 1:01 pm

  Ahh, don't sweat it, Zebra... its not like anyone in America really pays attention to Pennsylvania. How many people in the world (let alone America) would even be able to locate Pennsylvania on a map? Thus, the reason why anytime they beat out NJ or NY in anything they all feel the need to come over here and brag about it.

• todfiat (0) posts 12:56 pm

  Philly has been there since 1630 or so, and has 1.5 million residents, or so. North Philly alone has about 600,000 blacks. Not counting several hundred thousand suburbanites who commute into town each day. What's Atlantic City's excuse? No college in town, a remote high school in the mud & weeds, a lousy hospital, not even a supermarket, or movie theater, or pool hall, or bowling alley, or miniature golf, or children's zoo, or ???? It's rock-bottom.

• todfiat (0) posts 12:51 pm

  a mail offer from the Las Vegas Hilton (HUGE sports book room!): Option 1 for $115.00: 2 nights hotel; $100 in meal coupons; 2 uses of Fitness Room; 2 free welcome cocktails; 6 free buffets, or, Option 2: 3 nights hotel; $100 in meal coupons. BTW, acres of free parking there, and a monorail stop too. Call 1-800-457-3307. Does A.C. have anything remotely COMP -arable?

• zebra2 (109) posts 10:55 am

  I can't believe people compare the crime rate of Philadelphia to Atlantic City! Come on people get real! You are far more likely to pick up a prostitute, get mugged, or killed in Philly than any part of AC. And talk about corrupt politicians. Wow!

• American_Gaming_Guru (242) posts 10:16 am

  I agree. Don really never writes anything good about the city. But let's face it, as many of the commentators to this article have said, AC had its chance and blew it royally! Can the city still survive? YES IT CAN! But the city is only going to be a reflection of the civic and business leaders who have a stake in it. If the city keeps on electing leaders that have no idea of what leadership is, or companies placing casino bosses in charge of resorts with no regard to the area or a state government that is so corrupt and short-sighted the whole county is laughing than AC is doomed. I love AC and want desperately for it to succeed. But its stake holders really need to give a dam and leaders need to step up and so far, sadly, I don't see any.

• RandomX856 (159) posts 10:13 am

  todfiat- Get real. I wouldn't waste my time driving four hour, on TOLL HIGHWAYS in PA, to ski the hills called in Pennsylvania when I can fly four hours and ski the mountains in Colorado. PA is a big pile of cow dung, and the only people who give a rat's rear about it are the uneducated low-lives who live there. The rest of America doesn't even know it exists.

• todfiat (0) posts 9:39 am

  Evidently "Random" knows no one who goes to PA for: 1) art museum 2) major league sports games 3) concerts 4) skiing in the Poconos 5) the airport 6) Gettysburg 7) Delaware Water Gap, and .... well, you get the idea. By contrast, the PA appendage known as South Jersey - land of pineys and seashore junkies - with 2 of NJ's least-educated counties, Cumberland and Atlantic -is a sterling place to live. Bring lots of $$$ for taxes and tolls, BTW. PA looks better every day.

• yearight (15) posts 9:29 am

  This is GREAT news..A.C. can go back into the sea as the casinos die off one by one there won't be the wealthy Jewish families vacationing here like it was 50 years ago it will be only a place for the homeless, washed up hookers, the drug crowd and the wonderful honest people at city hall hahahahahahaha!!

• PennsylvaniaSucks (109) posts 12:49 am

  LOL... Pennsylvanians. If only they could build themselves an ocean, I'd be able to find a parking spot in the summer in Ocean City.

• WhatSayU (23) posts 12:08 am

  the person below nailed it...tables games are the only thing saving AC from the nail in to its coffin

• RandomX856 (159) posts 11:24 pm

  ha, PA is about 30 years behind NJ. Its about time those ayzzmonkeys in Harrisburg caught on... stop and think HOW MUCH MONEY did the AC casinos suck out of the pockets of PA residents?! And they have the audacity to rip on NJ... get real... Besides cowtipping with the Amish, and getting murdered in Philadelphia, what the heck else is there to do over there in hillbilly land. That's why they all flock over here every summer and invade our beaches, because Pennsylvania is one big pile of cow manuer.

• MiddlesexGal (1) posts 8:57 pm

  viola: Sorry your comps have been cut - mine have done nothing but increase over the last year (and I don't spend any more money or go any more often. 3-4 times per year, penny slot player). Free parking coupons in the mail too (and $5 when they don't come - cheaper than an event at the Meadowlands). And your problem with the Walk may be exaggerated - the Jitney stops right in the middle of the street (#3). I've been there in rain & snow & it's no worse than the local strip mall. Of course, I don't go near the Boardwalk anymore. Too many mentally challenged homeless and others pestering the tourists & gamblers. Avoid the Boardwalk riff-raff - stay at the Marina.

• jimmyd (32) posts 4:19 pm

  I dealt at Bally's for eleven years and I always thought AC would eventually get it's act together. I left there in 93 and headed on up to work at Foxwoods. Went back to AC last summer for the first time in years. What a toilet that place has become. What a toilet. The streets, the boardwalk,the people walking around with the belongings in a grocery cart, terrible.

• Mr_Glock (232) posts 3:53 pm

  Let's see....should I go to the beauty and safety of the Poconos or dodge hookers, bullets, and the likes of Mr. Young Jr? Hmmmmmmm?....tough choice!

• icantstandit (37) posts 1:33 pm

  AC will probably survive, but only with far fewer casinos. 5 at most. Resorts and Hilton will be the first to go, then probably Marina, the Plaza, and maybe Showboat and Bally. Only the strong will be able to make it. When [If] Revel opens, that will just split the customer base more. The things NJ needs to do to improve things won't happen because they won't spend the money. Deregulation, free parking, renovation, looser slots and comps all would cost up front. The State and casino management are too greedy, so It's not going to happen. Sad.

• todfiat (0) posts 12:09 pm

  "Curlew" is woefully naive, or a diehard Democrat. It's the Democrats - governors and mayors and most of the Assembly - who trashed A.C. And Steve Perskie & crew only charged the casinos a paltry 8% tax (A.C. was a very hard sell then.) They poured $$$ TRILLIONS into Rutgers, and Rutgers sports programs, the Meadowlands, the UMDNJ, all types of highway improvements, and PATH upgrades.... while South Jersey got pennies on the dollar. Indeed, lots of Margate still floods as it did in the 1950s. As does Rte. 40 between Bader Field and West A.C. Why is that? Something to do with a surfing and fishing "heritage"??? To blame the decades-long demise of A.C. on some Trenton hack a few decadeds back is laughable.

• todfiat (0) posts 11:59 am

  "Looks like Reality is getting her wish. Would the last one out of Atlantic City please turn out the lights." /// She'll always be TAMMY, the smoke Nazi, to me, before her name-switch to "Reality". Ah, "filty druggies needing their fix with their smelly hair", etc., ad nauseum. The TAMSTER in full cry! Enjoy your Pyrrhic victory, Tammy.

• jmanfrompa (38) posts 10:35 am

  Why do the casino operators continually refuse to do the most logical things to encourage patronage of their places? For example, "viola1" was dropped from the comp list when, if casino execs really wanted her business, they wouldn't have done that to her. Also, "Mike" is turned-off by lousy slot payouts. This above all is the MAIN reason for AC's decline, yet the casino managers stubbornly refuse to reverse that trend. It's like why go to AC when I can drop just as much $ in the slot parlors closer to my home? If the powers-to-be decide to put the fun factor back in their casinos, they will , once again, see the numbers climb. Otherwise, they can continue to expect the mass exodus from AC for other places.

• The_Curlew (22) posts 10:26 am

  This problem can be laid at the feet of the Republicans in Trenton, specifically Garabed "Chuck" Haytaian, Christie Whitman's butt boy, who did not allow the people of the state to vote a referendum to allow sports betting in A.C., when the feds gave us one chance.

• viola1 (12) posts 9:03 am

  New Jersey should have put casinos in the Meadowlands years ago. The largest population is in Northern NJ and New York. I am now going to Mr. Airy and the Sands. After many years of comped rooms and some food comps in AC, for no reason, I was dropped. Who wants to drive five hours round trip just to gamble. The Walk was built with almost no near parking. When the cold comes and the wind is strong, walking between stores is no fun. It should have been an enclosed mall. AC was dying before the casinos and now it will die again.

• MikeElbedewy (22) posts 8:21 am

  Next up Delaware table games and Maryland and Ohio slots. New York table games eventually. But not to worry AC. You still have your lousy slot payouts and blackjack plus some "amenities" other places don't like psychotic beggars, pay-to-park and obscene tolls coming and going.

• Nikynewark (118) posts 8:04 am

  The only thing saving AC from total disaster WAS the table games. Clearly The Sands PA is all ready to go, with space reserved just for the tables. As I have said so many times before AC has to return to 1 casino, 1 owner. Multiple casino ownership eliminated competition. Why try harder? A lot of the failure in AC is right at Corzines doorstep since he saw the dismal numbers and did nothing to change the CCC or demand some of those old, tired casinos snap out of it and do some renovations and advertising. Good luck to Pennsylvania on their new adventure. P.S. Even with their money problems look for a speedy opening of Foxwoods Philly.

• beachone (79) posts 7:19 am

  I can tell you there was much happiness in our casino near Pittsburgh last night. The lack of table games in the Pa casinos removed a certain amount of people and money from these business'. Now they will be gearing up to become full fledge operations, which will also hurt the West Virginia casinos. On this side of the state if you need a fix to play black jack, poker etc you have Wheeling or Mountaineer or AC (6.5 hour drive). Mountaineer just laid of more workers and Wheeling has seen their income drop like a rock. With that said I still feel there is still a certain group of people who will visit AC. I know ours plans put us there this late fall and for sure next summer so in my opinion people will still visit AC, believe it or not this will hurt Vegas more. b1

• SmokersParadise (12) posts 6:58 am

  Atlantic City is getting what it deserves. Lousy stores and food concessions on the boardwalk. Approving so many rolling chair licenses that people can't walk on the boardwalk during the summer. Allowing mental patients and the homeless to abuse people on the boardwalk and the street. Not one casino on the boardwalk can come close to an average casino in Las Vegas. The buffets are slop and overpriced. Atlantic City may have got lucky when the courts overturned true sportsbooks in Delaware. They aren't going to get lucky this time. Table games in Pennsylvania hopefully will put the nail in the coffin into substandard properties like Resorts and Hilton. Try to make it with your Pier Shops and Walk. Museums?? Try Mausoleum.

• essyma (33) posts 5:48 am

  DONALD WITTKOWSKI HAS NEVER WRITTEN A POSITIVE ARTICLE IN HIS LIFE; HE GETS PAID ONLY TO WRITE NEGATIVE. HOW SAD. AC WILL BE FINE BECUZ WE WILL HAVE 100% NO SMOKING SOON AND THE 80% THAT DON'T SMOKE WILL STAY HERE AND COME HERE MORE THEN THE LOUSY 50% SMOKING CASINOS IN PA.

• PennsylvaniaSucks (109) posts 1:51 am

  DONALD WITTKOWSKI probably got a boner while writing this story, since he hates Atlantic City so much.

• REALDEAL (51) posts 12:35 am

  If Toth didn't spend so much time bangin' the help, maybe he would still be working in the AC market instead of relegated to the minor leagues.

• whyoknabth (151) posts 12:29 am

  "It's got to be planned in the next three to five years or Atlantic City will face additional problems." The end is near. AC had 30+ years jump-start & failed. 3-5 more years isn't going to help now. It'll be back to making enough money during the summer season to collect unemployment in the winter. However, it's a good opportunity for casino workers who are stuck here with horrible pay & benefits to get out of NJ. I'm game!

• WhatSayU (23) posts 11:34 pm

  assuming table games will be up and ready by late 2010...with or without Revel opening in 2011...the older casinos will never survive this one...this is going to hurt them pretty bad...AC hotels were got the wrecking ball from the 60s to the 80s due...four words...HERE WE GO AGAIN

• ConcernedCitizen (223) posts 11:05 pm

  Looks like Reality is getting her wish. Would the last one out of Atlantic City please turn out the lights.

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