Evolution Of Gambling In Atlantic City

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Atlantic City, located on the coast in the state of New Jersey, is the second largest gambling destination in the United States. Modern casino style gambling came to Atlantic City only in the 1970s. But for 100 years before that the history of gambling in New Jersey was like a roller-coaster ride.

Once upon a time in New Jersey lotteries were used to pay armies and even to fund the construction of educational institutions, like Queen’s College and Princeton University. New Jersey boasts of the oldest racetrack in the United States. In 1844 New Jersey banned the lotteries. In 1894 the state legislature banned pari-mutuel gambling. Following a referendum in 1897 all forms of gambling were banned. Since then the introduction of any gambling in New Jersey requires voter approval. The reverse trend began in 1939 when horse racing was re-legalized. In 1953, voter approval allowed not for profit organizations to hold bingo and raffles. In 1959, amusement games were re-legalized. In 1970, 81.5% of New Jersey voted in favor of creating the New Jersey Lottery.

Seeing the popularity and success of Las Vegas and with an urgent need to generate funds, New Jersey held a referendum in 1974 seeking to legalize casino gambling statewide. The voters vetoed this referendum. However, in 1976 the voters approved a new referendum legalizing casinos, but restricting them to Atlantic City. At that time Nevada was the only state with legal casino gambling. Resorts Atlantic City opened in May in 1978and became the first legal casino on the East Coast of the United States. Soon other casinos were constructed along the Boardwalk. But popularity and business eluded them. At that time Atlantic City was not even a close match to Las Vegas as a gambling destination.

Donald Trump introduced big name boxing bouts, including those of Mike Tyson, to Atlantic City to attract customers to his casinos. High rise condominiums were built as permanent residences or second homes for regular casino gamblers. By the end of 1980s the popularity of Atlantic City began to soar. But this did not last long. The redevelopment of Las Vegas and the opening up of casinos in Connecticut in the early 1990s led to a decline in traffic in the Atlantic City casinos.

In order to arrest this decline, in 1999 the Atlantic City Redevelopment Authority planned the development of a new resort area in a barren section of the city near the Marina. A 2.5 miles long tunnel was built from the Atlantic City Expressway to the marina at a cost of $330 million. The tunnel opened in 2001. Boyd Gaming in partnership with MGM/Mirage constructed The Borgata, which opened in July 2003. This casino was extremely successful brought an influx of developers to Atlantic City for building Las Vegas style grand casinos. Ultimately not all plans reached fruition.

Atlantic City currently has twelve casinos, which are regulated by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission and New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. The largest is The Borgata, closely followed by Harrah’s. The latest to open was Revel in April 2012. In 2011, New Jersey’s casinos employed about 33,000 employees, had 28.5 million visitors, earned $3.3 billion in gaming revenue and paid $278 million in taxes. Today New Jersey is grappling with legalizing online gambling. The bill has been passed in the legislature and awaits the governor’s assent. It proposes that the servers of all online casino sites will have to be located in Atlantic City casinos. This will give a further boost to the operations of these casinos.

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