{"id":21964,"date":"2018-06-27T07:41:38","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T15:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=21964"},"modified":"2018-06-27T08:21:31","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T16:21:31","slug":"atlantic-city-primed-for-openings-tokenism-at-aga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/atlantic-city-primed-for-openings-tokenism-at-aga\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlantic City primed for openings; Tokenism at AGA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDo I think the gaming market ever comes back to close to $6 billion in revenue? No. Not even close,\u201d Hard Rock International<\/strong> CEO Jim Allen<\/strong> said of Atlantic City<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cIf a brand like Hard Rock fails \"\"in Atlantic City, the interest in investing capital in that town is going to diminish significantly.\u00a0However, if we are successful, then I think the future is very bright.\u201d Allen and Ocean Resort<\/strong> owner Bruce Deifik<\/strong> are on the eve of reopening two properties. Allen has reinvented Trump Taj Mahal<\/strong> as Hard Rock Atlantic City<\/strong> and Deifik has revamped<\/a> Revel<\/strong> into Ocean Resort.<\/p>\n

New Jersey<\/strong> Gov. Phil Murphy<\/strong> (D) was even more optimistic in a recent speech, saying,\u00a0\u201cNot long ago \u2014 it was not long ago at all \u2014 folks were writing Atlantic City off. It was past its prime. The \"\"economy was dead. Now, when people speak of Atlantic City, they speak of renewal, they speak of opportunity.\u201d The market that once was synonymous with Donald Trump<\/strong> may be the new music city, courtesy of Hard Rock and its 300-event lineup. The Washington Post<\/em> diplomatically says Trump “withdrew from the business” but it would be more accurate that the business withdrew from him, as Carl Icahn<\/strong> gobbled up bankrupt Trump Entertainment Resort<\/strong>s, in which Trump had been a minority investor. (Probably the only time Trump’s been a minority anything<\/em>.)\"\"<\/p>\n

Deifik’s main man for gaming, Seth Schorr<\/strong>, is rushing to put a sports book in place<\/a>, viewing sports betting as the big new draw on the Boardwalk.\u00a0\u201cComing from Nevada<\/strong>, it\u2019s hard to even imagine a casino without a sports book.\u00a0You have to have an exciting environment to watch the game. Our goal is to create experiences,\u201d Schorr told the WaPo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If Atlantic City could rival Nevada’s $4.8 billion sports-betting market, that would be an additional $250 million in casino \"\"revenue.\u00a0 (Moody’s Investor Service<\/strong> estimates the winnings\u00a0at $125 million, projected.) That’s asking a lot but, unlike Las Vegas<\/strong>, Atlantic City has two major metro markets — Philadelphia<\/strong> and New York City<\/strong> — within a fairly short drive. (Yes, Vegas draws upon Los Angeles<\/strong>, San Diego<\/strong> and Phoenix<\/strong>, but none of those are as proximate.) New York<\/strong>‘s Legislature just whiffed on sports betting, so Empire State citizens have a special motivation to head on down. Said former state senator Raymond Lesniak<\/strong>,\u00a0\u201cDuring the NCAA Tournament<\/strong>, Super Bowl<\/strong> week, any big event, you can\u2019t get a room in Las Vegas and Atlantic City is a ghost town. That changes with sports betting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Deifik,\u00a0\u201cInstead of getting on a plane and going five hours to Las Vegas from the East Coast and New Jersey, people will stay \"\"here.\u201d We hope so.\u00a0\u201cWe feel like the vibrancy this type of offering will create will extend beyond just the race and sports book and spill out onto the rest of the property,\u201d adds Borgata<\/strong> President Marcus Glover<\/strong>, who oversees the only casino-based sports book in the market presently.<\/p>\n

While both Hard Rock and Ocean Resort are banking on Atlantic City’s family trade, Deifik is also going for an adults-only vibe<\/a> by reopening Ivan Kane<\/strong>‘s Royal Jelly Burlesque Nightclub<\/strong>.\u00a0“There is no place like this in the world. It’s like a dancer’s playground. There’s tons of stuff to climb on and hang off of and swing on,” said dancer and Royal Jelly veteran Lindsey Dunn. Royal Jelly was one of the few Revel amenities to do well, so Deifik is embracing it, \"\"compared to his hold-your-nose-and-accept-it situation Hard Rock faces with the Scores<\/strong> mega-titty bar, forced upon it in a legal settlement.<\/p>\n

“I was afraid the place was never going to reopen,” Kane bellowed at a reporter. (He always speaks at the top of his lungs.)\u00a0“For me to walk into this pristine $8 million to $9 million nightclub in a $2.4 billion building and to see it sitting there forlornly waiting for a crowd to energize it, that was truly sad.” Be sad no more, Ivan. The fun resumes tomorrow night.<\/p>\n

* The American Gaming Association<\/strong> has formed up a search committee, to replace departed CEO Geoff Freeman<\/strong>. It’s headed up by Penn National Gaming<\/strong> CEO Tim Wilmott<\/strong> and includes executives from three other Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> companies: Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>, Caesars \"\"Entertainment<\/strong> and MGM Resorts International<\/strong>. Unless you count Penn, regional casinos are only represented by Rush Street Gaming<\/strong> CEO Greg Carlin<\/strong> and, worse still, tribal gaming — which rivals the private sector in revenue and ubiquity — gets only a token presence, in the form of Chickasaw Nation<\/strong>\u00a0Secretary of Commerce Bill Lance Jr<\/strong>. MGM CEO Jim Murren<\/strong>, who’s on the board, knows a thing or two about diversity. We say he should speak up about the Vegas-centric composition of the group, maybe even vacate his chair in favor of another tribal member. How about it, Jim?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDo I think the gaming market ever comes back to close to $6 billion in revenue? No. Not even close,\u201d Hard Rock International CEO Jim Allen said of Atlantic City.\u00a0\u201cIf a brand like Hard Rock fails in Atlantic City, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[109,23,239,34,82,42,4,174,165,7,241,53,11,101,95,157,242,74,9,20,169,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21964"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21967,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21964\/revisions\/21967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}