The last hand: The epic bust of Atlantic City’s gambling economy

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REMAKING CITIES

The last

hand: The

epic bust of

Atlantic

Citys

gambling

economy

Inside the fall of a once-

glittering casino and a troubled

seaside gambling paradise.

Tina Griego 8 hours ago

REMAKING CITIES

The end of a casino

monopoly, in three

charts

Ryan McCarthy 8 hours ago

THE COST OF CLIMATE CHANGE

The polar bear who

took on Wall Street

Danielle Paquette 5 hours ago

AMERICA'S MILITARY

Why Americans

support for bombing

ISIS may not last

Peyton M. Craighill 1 day ago

Storylines ALL UNEVEN RECOVERY PUBLIC POLICY EXPERIMENTS RACIAL DISPARITIES

THE CULTURE OF GUNS

Pgina 1 de 27The last hand: The epic bust of Atlantic Citys gambling economy - The Washingto...

23/09/2014http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/23/the-last-hand-the-epic...

The polar bear who took on Wall Street

A longtime activist - and his costume and arrest - shows the difference between New

York's climate protests.

Danielle Paquette 5 hours ago

THE COST OF CLIMATE

CHANGE

Tell us your story Have a story to share with Storyline?

Atlantic Citys not completely dead

Remaking Cities

The last hand: The epic bust of

Atlantic Citys gambling economy

Inside the fall of a once-glittering casino and a troubled seaside

gambling paradise.

By Tina Griego September 23 at 10:35 AM Follow @tinagriego



ATLANTIC CITY Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, the fourth boardwalk casino

here to close this year, was pronounced dead at 5:59 a.m. on a Tuesday, which

in and of itself seemed an insult. In the end, the 30-year-old onetime hotbed of

glamor looked like it had smoked too much, had drunk too hard and needed a

shower.

Trump Plaza sat in the center of the boardwalk. Come off the Atlantic City

Expressway, and there it loomed, a white monolith projecting surrender in

stained carpets, roped-off pits and the neon U LAZA sign staring balefully down

the boardwalk.

Few gamblers came to see it off, though Marie Morlachetta stopped by late

Sunday night to say goodbye to the staff and to pronounce upon discovering

no toilet paper in her bathroom stall This place has been going to the dogs

for a long time, but I still love it.

On the morning of the casinos closing, a memorabilia collector parks himself

among the rows of blinking, blaring, vacant slots and keeps feeding it titos

ticket in, ticket out to get one time-stamped as close as possible to the final

minute.

But mostly the dealers pack up chips, and cocktail waitresses serve the last of

the vodka and coffee, and everyone checks their watches. That evening, they

gather by the hundreds at a 24-hour bar where they used to go to decompress.

They call out to each other, a parade of Johnnies and Kennys and Joeys and

Ritchies and Debbies.

Some left the Plaza years ago for the greener pastures of casinos in other states,

but many spent their entire careers there. We spent 30 years together, says



Debbie Fortier, a cocktail waitress. We were together longer than most

marriages.

They spill out in the parking lot and smoke cigarettes and take pictures and tell

stories about the days when Donald Trump still ran the place and the high

rollers laid down $10,000 bets and tipped $1,000 a hand and celebrities floated

through like fairy dust. It was exhilarating, says dealer Ken Gonsalves, who

opened the place in 1984.

The Plaza had become the limping property at the back of a herd of what were

once 12 casinos in Atlantic City. No one was surprised when it failed to outrun

the logic of the convenience gambler, the day-tripper upon whom Atlantic City

had become dependent.

Why would I drive two and half hours to come here, when door-to-door from

my house to Mount Airy Casino is 45 minutes? asks Peter Bryn of Budd Lake,

N.J., in town for nearby firefighters conference.

So sounds the death knell of an East Coast monopoly. So goes the elbow-

throwing era of state-sanctioned casino gambling. Get in while the getting is

good. Build them big. Tax them high. Divert the stream of cash before it crosses

the border.

In 2006, gross gaming revenue was $9.5 billion in the northeastern U.S.

market. In 2013, it was $11.7 billion, a three percent annual growth rate, says

David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University

of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Some casinos thrive. Others languish. The new lure customers from the old. A

favored word in play: cannibalization.

Not all of the letters worked on the Trump Plaza marquee at the Trump Plaza and Hotel in Atlantic City. It

closed Sept. 16. (By Lee Powell/The Washington Post)



The monopoly of gaming for Atlantic City ended five years ago, and the fact

that no one woke up and said this is a chapter thats closing and we need a new

chapter was beyond me, says Mayor Don Guardian, who took office in January

and whose campaign slogan was A New Beginning. We put all our eggs in

one basket, and you never put all your eggs in one basket.

The air in Atlantic City these days is laced with belated recognition. This city is

famous for its pessimism (I heard a guy complain that if Fort Knox brought a

traveling exhibition of gold bars to the convention center, overnight theyd turn

to lead. You building Atlantic Citys future? asks the reporter to the worker

outside the massive Bass Pro Shop construction site. Its next demise, he

answers.)

But thats not all to be found here. Atlantic City has always been a place of

contradiction. Neon artificiality, food -stamp reality, persistent urban decay,

spectacular natural beauty, multiethnic, multiracial, multilingual its a town

that gets beneath the skin, refusing to allow you to give up on it. The locals call

it getting sand in your shoes, says Trump Plaza security guard Stanley Smith.

And once you have it, you cant get rid of it.

A city that reinvents itself as often as this one perseveres on the memory of the

good old days left behind and the promise of better days ahead. In a seaside

town, theres always next season. Now, however, it must deal with an economic

crisis.

You want to talk ripple effects? says Frank Formica, an elected county official

and owner of a 95-year-old family bakery that supplies some of the casinos.

The ripple effects are tidal waves.

***

Four casinos closed in nine months. A fifth threatens to close by Thanksgiving.

Almost 8,000 workers got pink slips. Many of the lost positions were



considered good jobs with union-negotiated benefits, and people made careers

out of them. They bought houses. They raised kids. They put themselves and

their kids through college and went to the dentist regularly and had their nails

done.

You dont have to think too hard about what the ripple effects might be.

We have about 800 casino workers living here, says Egg Harbor Township

Mayor James Sonny McCullough. Weve seen this before. As the casinos

started to cut back around 2008, 2009, and started moving toward a part-time

workforce, we started seeing a lot of foreclosures. It still costs the same amount

of money to operate a town. You still have trash pickup. You still have law

enforcement, and you still have education. Sixty-five percent of the budget goes

to education.

Things started going bad in 2007, the year after Pennsylvania opened slots,

henceforth known as the Year of No Going Back. Within four years,

Pennsylvania bumped Atlantic City out of second place behind Nevada in

annual gaming revenue. In 2013, Schwartz says, Pennsylvanias gross gaming

revenue was $3.1 billion. Almost two-thirds of those winnings came from

eastern Pennsylvania gamblers who otherwise would likely spend their

money in Atlantic City.

As Pennsylvania rose, Atlantic City fell from a 2006 peak of $5.2 billion in gross

casino revenues to $2.8 billion last year.

Considering that Atlantic Citys long monopoly ended with the start of the Great

Recession, bad quickly became worse. Trump Plaza dealer Ray Ngo pulls his

last paycheck from his pocket. Net pay: $95.59. Trump Plaza dealers weekly

Slot machines inside the Trump Plaza and Hotel hours before the casino complex closed Sept. 16. (Lee

Powell/The Washington Post)



toke rate, the pooled tips they divvy up, fell from a high of $20 an hour to an

average of $10 an hour. In the last full week of business, the toke was $6.56 an

hour.

The ripples show up in the 2,091 unemployment insurance claims filed by

casino workers after Showboat and Revel closed. They show up in the more

than 1,500 job-seekers who met with 60 employers at the Department of Labor

and Workforce Development career fair held at the Atlantic City Convention

Center.

The ripples also show up in rising real estate taxes already among the highest

in the country which Atlantic City has been raising by double digits of late.

Ninety percent of the citys budget comes from real estate taxes.

In 2010, the citys total assessed property value was $20.5 billion, says Michael

Stinson, the citys director of revenue and finance. In 2014, it had fallen to $11.3

billion and is heading south. The majority of that drop is a result of successful

appeals by the casinos for reassessments. Because of the straits the city now

finds itself in, Stinson says, federal and state government is kicking in a

combined total of about $30 million to help cover essential services including

firefighters through the end of the year.

THE MONOPOLY OF GAMING FOR ATLANTIC CITY ENDED

FIVE YEARS AGO, AND THE FACT THAT NO ONE WOKE UP

AND SAID THIS IS A CHAPTER THATS CLOSING AND WE

NEED A NEW CHAPTER WAS BEYOND ME.

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian.



The less money Atlantic City has to contribute toward the county budget, the

more the surrounding jurisdictions have had to kick in, meaning they, too, have

been raising real estate tax rates.

Frank Formica is chair of the equivalent of Atlantic Countys Board of

Supervisors, here called the Board of Chosen Freeholders. The area he

represents includes Atlantic City. He is also the owner of Formica Bros. bakery,

which bakes 20,000 to 50,000 pieces of bread a day and has nearly 70

employees. We delivered somewhere around 2,000 to 3,000 pieces a day to

Trump Plaza at its peak, he says. The Atlantic Club was 1,000 a day. Revel, a

couple thousand pieces a day.

He says he expanded operations into a neighboring county and picked up 100

more accounts over the last five years to try compensate for the loss he feared

was coming. So, people might say, Whats Formica crying about? I used to

deliver the equivalent of those 100 accounts within a mile radius of our bakery

to the casinos. Now, we do it in a 40-mile radius with two extra trucks and

drivers that add 180 hours of labor and 1,000 miles of gas, tolls and wear and

tear per week.

But, he says, from forest fires come new trees. This is a wakeup call for Atlantic

City to become something only it can become.

One thing that has never been underscored in what is happening here,

Formica adds, is that no other city in the U.S. will ever be the first exclusive

monopoly outside Nevada in the rest of your days. No other city had a

mandated legislative monopoly. No other city with gaming outside Vegas

exploded like Atlantic City, and no other city could implode like it . . . We were

Vegas only competition, and now everyone is our competition.

The sun sets over hotels along the Atlantic City Boardwalk. To some, the famed city is fading as a gambling

destination. To others, a new day could be dawning. (By Lee Powell/The Washington Post)



***

Atlantic City is a town of 40,000 people, 48 blocks long, three-quarters of a

mile wide at its widest. Its budget is about $270 million. About one-third of its

residents live in poverty. More than two-thirds of its adults age 25 and older

have a high school diploma or less.

In July, its non-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 13.9 percent, more

than twice that of New Jerseys. The good news is thats lower than in was in

July 2013. The not-so-good news is that its labor force is shrinking, as well.

Cuts are coming. Pain is inevitable, Guardian says, though he hopes to avoid

mass layoffs in City Hall through attrition.

Guardian is a man with a snap in his stride and a vision for economic

diversification that includes turning Atlantic City into a university town, better

educating its workforce, extending the boardwalk and creating the equivalent of

Baltimores Inner Harbor. It includes a plan to grow the citys retail base and to

diversify the tourist industry to attract a greater range of entertainment and

conventions.

We need to become a real city and not just a Jersey Shore town, he says.

No one, the mayor says, saw the collapse of four casinos in a single year. A fifth,

the Trump Taj Mahal, is in bankruptcy, with the owners making noises about

closing in mid-November if the union doesnt make some concessions. The Taj

is a colossal property, as was Revel Casino. Showboat, which sits between them,

was no slouch. One end of the boardwalk would fall into silence should the Taj

go, and if there is one thing the boardwalk will not tolerate, it is silence.

So, investors sniff. Inquiries are made. The lowball offer is readied. Revel cost

$2.4 billion to build. The opening bid at this weeks auction is expected to be

$90 million. The city still houses a $2 billion-plus casino industry. The other

local casinos, particularly those at the marina, have seen their revenues rise



with the culling, and a few years ago several began to expand into true

resort/entertainment facilities.

Plus, as everyone here will tell you with a wide sweep of the arm toward the

beach and the sun sparkling off the Atlantic Ocean, Weve got this.

***

The morning after Trump Plaza closes, a 51-year-old Plaza bartender sits with

the 54-year-old Plaza cocktail waitress at a one-stop shop set up by the state

Department of Labor and Unite Here, local 54, and helps her apply for her

unemployment benefits.

This is all I know, she says.

The newly jobless move from station to station, applying for food stamps, if

needed, getting information in English, Spanish and Gujuarti on credit

counseling, mortgage modification, job training, Social Security and help with

the utility bills.

Gonsalves says his wife is a part-time dealer at Borgata, the hot property in the

city, and so hes going to take some time to catch up on projects around the

house. One day, when his little ones are grown, hell tell them about the last

night at the Plaza and how he dealt the last hand:

In the casinos last hour, only one table is open. Two players take a seat. One is

the husband of a dealer, and he keeps a steady stream of tips going Gonsalves

way. The other is a scruffy guy in a camouflage jacket, who later declares his

name classified on a need-to-know basis.

Gonsalves, a miracle to watch with the cards, does his thing. Mr. X proceeds to

lose hand after hand through a stream of complaints about how hed been

playing at the Trump Plaza since damn near the beginning of time and how it

had been mismanaged into oblivion.

Pgina 10 de 27The last hand: The epic bust of Atlantic Citys gambling economy - The Washing...


The end of a casino monopoly, in three charts

A look at how Atlantic City's dominance was upended by America's casino boom.

Ryan McCarthy 8 hours ago

Im really here for sentimental reasons, you know, he says. I wanted to play

one last shy hand in a shy casino.

Alright, last hand gentlemen, the casino manager says.

Gonsalves deals. Good luck, he says.

All in, Mr. X says. Just go crazy with it. Just wild.

No one will remember what the two players hands show, because Gonsalves

shows an ace. And then turns a queen.

Blackjack.

House wins. House loses, and so it goes and always has in Atlantic City.

Tina Griego is a reporter for Storyline. Previously, Tina was a city columnist for the Rocky Mountain News

and the Denver Post for a combined 12 years.

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The end of a casino monopoly, in three charts

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The last hand: The epic bust of Atlantic City’s gambling economy

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