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Gamble Pays Off, but Not for All

Posted on: Saturday, 10 May 2008, 09:00 CDT

By WAYNE PARRY

By Wayne Parry

The Associated Press

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.

The ads were titled "Help Yourself, Help Atlantic City, Help New Jersey," and they made a series of promises, if only voters would pull the "yes" lever to legalize casino gambling.

Having casinos in Atlantic City would "balance taxes, create jobs, boost the economy, and cut down on street crime," the advertisements assured.

Thirty years after singer Steve Lawrence tossed the first dice onto a green felt table to kick off legalized gambling on Memorial Day 1978, there is no question that casinos have transformed Atlantic City into a $5 billion-a-year powerhouse.

But while most of those promises were kept, many of the problems the gambling halls and their billions were intended to address remain.

Casinos created tens of thousands of jobs, a flood of money for state coffers and put New Jersey on the national map for vacation and gambling junkets. But they also created a sharper divide between the haves and have-nots. Before voters approved casino gambling in 1976, Atlantic City was a poor city struggling with crime, drugs and a lack of jobs. Today, it has the casinos, but the other problems persist.

"I feel sorry for the people that have been here all their lives and went through 1976, thinking there would be change," said Merceda Gooding, a 40-year-old Atlantic City resident. "It saddens me to see that. In 1976, they said they were going to do all this stuff to help the needs of the Atlantic City residents, and they've fallen short a lot. We don't even have a grocery store here."

Gooding is completing her college degree in business administration and human resources. She wants a white-collar job at a casino but has found the work available to be much less attractive.

"I wouldn't have a problem getting a job at a casino as long as it's a maid job or washing the tables," she said.

Tom Carver, executive director of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, said casinos delivered on their economic promises but never were supposed to be saviors.

Founded as a health retreat where the salt air was thought to be curative, by 1880 Atlantic City was a full-fledged resort, complete with the nation's first Boardwalk. It gave the world Miss America, salt water taffy and the Monopoly board game.

But by the middle of the 20th century, the resort was fading. The grand hotels were decaying and the advent of air travel put more exotic destinations within reach of tourists .

"You could roll a bowling ball down Pacific Avenue and not hit anybody," Carver said. "The town was nothing. It had no hope, no future, no vision, no anything."

On Nov. 2, 1976, the day President Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, New Jersey voters approved casino gambling by a margin of 200,000 votes out of 2 million cast. Crowds formed on the Boardwalk that night, spontaneously breaking into little parades, and many bars gave away free drinks - perhaps accounting for the little parades.

Work soon began on the first casino, Resorts Atlantic City, which opened on Memorial Day 1978 with a line of people blocks long snaking down the Boardwalk, waiting to get in.

Other casinos soon followed: Caesars Atlantic City and Bally's Atlantic City in 1979, what would become the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort, and Harrah's Atlantic City in 1980, the Tropicana Casino and Resort in 1981. By 2003, when the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa opened, there were 12 gambling houses, although the Sands Casino Hotel closed in 2006.

Just two blocks away from the casinos was a different Atlantic City: a poor population living in substandard housing, feeling cut off and alienated from the glittering wealth just beyond their grasp. Sheila Thomas, 60, a lifelong resident and former casino cashier supervisor, said the casino boom has passed the average Atlantic City resident by.

"We're the ones who put up with the drugs and the gunshots and the street crime out here every night," she said. "I've worked here, I've paid taxes here and I helped make this town. Now, I feel like they want me to leave."

Gooding, the casino job seeker, added, "There are a lot of angry people in our city. We have to deal with the traffic, the crime, the prostitution and the drug activity, but I can't get any opportunity from the casinos.

"When tourists come down here, they see beautiful attractions, but they never come into the poor part of Atlantic City and really see the homeless situation," she said. "People are living in deplorable conditions. You go two blocks from the casinos and it's like you're living in a different country. "

Tony Rodio, president of Resorts Atlantic City and the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort, said Las Vegas also has neighborhoods that haven't prospered with the casinos. And he noted that more than 40,000 people have jobs because of Atlantic City's gambling halls.

"There's only so much the casino industry can do," he said. "I don't think there was a promise that they were going to be able to eradicate poverty and redevelop every single square foot of Atlantic City. But in the grand scheme of things, the casinos have delivered on the promises to Atlantic City that were made 30 years ago."

Originally published by BY WAYNE PARRY.

(c) 2008 Virginian - Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Source: Virginian - Pilot

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