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\tWayne Parry, Associated Press<\/strong> \tFor years, economists and analysts talked in theoretical terms about \u201ccasino saturation\u201d in the northeastern United States. But there\u2019s nothing theoretical about what\u2019s happening in Atlantic City now.<\/p>\n \tThe Atlantic Club is dead, taken down by two rivals. Revel says it will close if a buyer can\u2019t be found, and Caesars Entertainment, which says there are too many casinos in New Jersey, plans to shutter one of its four, the Showboat, on Aug. 31.<\/p>\n \tMayor Don Guardian, who could see a quarter of his city\u2019s casinos close during his first year in office, said Atlantic City is in the midst of a difficult but necessary makeover from being a gambling resort to a multi-faceted destination where betting is only part of the allure.<\/p>\n \t\u201cAlthough it is sad today, it\u2019s part of the transition that Atlantic City needs to have,\u201d he said Friday, hours after the Showboat shutdown was announced. \u201cThere is pain as we go through this transition, but it\u2019s critical for Atlantic City to realize we are no longer the monopoly of gaming on the East Coast. If you build more and more casinos and don\u2019t increase the amount of people coming to them, you\u2019re sharing that wealth. We\u2019re just going through a very difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n \tSince 2006, Atlantic City\u2019s casino revenue has plunged from a high of $5.2 billion to $2.86 billion last year. It has been beset by competition from Pennsylvania, which has surpassed it as the nation\u2019s No. 2 casino market after Nevada, and suffered further losses with additional casinos coming online in New York and Maryland.<\/p>\n \tIsrael Posner, executive director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton College, said the resort has been dealing with casino saturation for a while now.<\/p>\n \t\u201cWe know that the oversupply of gaming product is a regional issue, as we\u2019re seeing the effects of the pressure all around Atlantic City,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \tBob McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE casino workers\u2019 union, called Caesars\u2019 decision to close a profitable casino \u201ca criminal act.\u201d<\/p>\n \tSince before Revel opened, McDevitt warned that adding another casino to the 11 that were operating here at the time could cause one or more to shut down. That has come to pass \u2013 and then some.<\/p>\n \t\u201cI\u2019m heartbroken and angry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \tYet some analysts say what is happening in Atlantic City and other parts of the country is actually good for a market that has gotten too big to sustain itself. Fitch Ratings saw the upside in the shutdown announcement.<\/p>\n \t\u201cThe closure makes financial sense for Caesars and is a positive for the oversupplied Atlantic City market,\u201d the company wrote in a note to investors. \u201cShowboat has about $50 million in labor costs and pays about $15 million in property tax (although Caesars is appealing Showboat\u2019s $625 million assessed value). Caesars will likely recapture most of the Showboat customers at its three other resorts in Atlantic City.\u201d<\/p>\n \tSpeaking at the East Coast Gaming Congress in Atlantic City in May, several Wall Street analysts said Atlantic City\u2019s casino market is in the process of correcting itself, which they considered a good thing for its long-term viability.<\/p>\n \tAdam Rosenberg, a managing director with Goldman Sachs, said the reduction in capacity that is underway is a positive. Srihari Rajagopalan, a debt analyst with UBS, agreed.<\/p>\n \t\u201cYou are seeing the market right-size, which is a positive,\u201d Rajagopalan said. \u201cThere are unprofitable casinos shutting down.\u201d<\/p>\n \tThat clearly applied to the Atlantic Club. It struggled for years before being bought in a bankruptcy court auction by two local competitors, Caesars Entertainment and Tropicana Entertainment, who divvied up its assets and closed it on Jan. 13.<\/p>\n \tIt also would apply to Revel, which has never turned a profit since opening two years ago, if it shuts down.<\/p>\n \tBut Showboat was profitable, having posted a gross operating profit of nearly $2 million in the first quarter of this year, down from nearly $8.5 million in the first quarter of 2013.<\/p>\n \tGuardian would not say how many casinos he thinks his city can profitably support.<\/p>\n \t\u201cThe market is going to set that,\u201d he said. \u201cAt some point you\u2019re going to have the right number of casinos.\u201d<\/p>\n No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wayne Parry, Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) \u2013 Atlantic City started the year with 12 casinos. By Labor Day, it could be down to nine. For years, economists and analysts talked in theoretical terms about \u201ccasino saturation\u201d in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\tATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) \u2013 Atlantic City started the year with 12 casinos. By Labor Day, it could be down to nine.<\/p>\n
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