‘Gambling on New Jersey’s future’ – The debate continues

Should casinos be allowed outside of Atlantic City? What's the best way to cultivate gaming in the Garden state? How can Atlantic City survive and prosper?

Tuesday night on NJ 101.5, a special "Gambling on New Jersey's Future" Town Hall show examined those and other related issues.

During the program, Assemblyman Scott Rumana (R-Wayne) stressed the importance of generating a revenue source to help Atlantic City recover from its financial crisis, and he suggested it could come from a North Jersey casino.

He said a lot of people in North Jersey are not traveling to Atlantic City anymore because it's easier to get to Pennsylvania, Connecticut or New York, since those are shorter rides.

"Tying a casino in North Jersey to another attraction would be ideal," he said. "For example, right in one of the areas where they've talked about possibly having a casino is around the Meadowlands, and you have the American Dream project which is going to be built, it's moving forward," Rumana said.

According to the Assemblyman, placing a casino in such a location could attract national and even international attention.

"Those folks anticipate getting 40 million to 50 million visitors a year on their location, so if you had a casino somewhere in the range of all that activity, that's international, national exposure, right, and you have the ability to capture some of those folks that you won't necessarily be able to transport all the way to Atlantic City," Rumana said.

Bob McDevitt, the head of Atlantic City's main casino workers' union, said with gambling profits down, additional non-gaming attractions being added to AC will help to attract more convention visitors.

"Last year Atlantic City did $160 million in convention business," he said. "You double or triple that, you've gone a long way to make up that revenue, that's how Las Vegas survives, California Indian gaming, and gaming in Arizona."

He said Atlantic City was originally a convention town but very early on, the casinos abandoned that theme.

McDevitt also said casinos in Atlantic City need to learn to work as partners - like they've done in Vegas - to help create more attractions and promote the town.

"The attitude has got to be not every man for himself, the attitude has got to be let's do this together, and that's starting to happen," he said.

Roger Gros, the publisher of Global Gaming Business magazine, said a market that is over-saturated already will limit any casino growth in the future, especially because nearby states like New York and Pennsylvania are building new casinos.

When one caller suggested that the state should run the casinos - to maximize revenue - McDevitt said that might not work out well.

"Having the government take it over would just be a disaster," he said. "I mean they can't even run a state let alone a casino."