Casinos within the northeastern United States are facing quite a few challenges as they prepare for the arrival of recent competitors in New York City.
Challenges identified Wednesday during a significant casino conference in Atlantic City included a possible smoking ban in Atlantic City, an ongoing debate over whether Internet gambling hurts or improves the underside line of physical casinos, and the lack of business through illegal online operations.
Panelists on the East Coast Gaming Congress at Hard Rock Casino discussed the turmoil within the industry, particularly because it prepares for the influx of three casinos in upstate New York which might be widely expected to redefine the regional gaming market.
New York is within the means of choosing casino sites and is preparing to reply a whole lot of questions from potential casino operators before it gets closer to issuing licenses.
Mark Giannantonio, president of the Atlantic City Resorts Casino and the Casino Association of New Jersey, said his city has “a two-year window” to arrange for brand new competition from its northern neighbor.
“We clearly see gambling in New York in general as a threat,” he said, anticipating increased competition for patrons from the region and from other countries who will decide to visit and gamble in New York.
He also said New York casinos would hurt competition in eastern Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Giannantonio said Atlantic City needs to enhance its cleanliness, infrastructure and public safety to fulfill the challenge of recent competition.
“Casinos can only do so much,” he said. “We provide the jobs and the capital. Let’s balance the streets with the beautiful aspects of the ocean. Let’s take care of our homeless population once and for all. It takes investment and programs that get a homeless person off the street or under the boardwalk and give them the help they need.”
Mayor Marty Small didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Stacey Rowland, president of the New York Gaming Association, said upcoming recent casinos in her state would seek to capture gambling money that’s currently flowing to other states.
“Competition is a good thing,” she said. “The competition from New York City will be a motivation (for the rivals) to improve.”
Atlantic City can also be facing a relentless push from casino employees to finish smoking on the gaming floor. They have pushed lawmakers to pass a smoking ban bill and recently filed a lawsuit to overturn a state law that exempts Atlantic City casinos from the state’s indoor air pollution control law.
Giannantonio called a smoking ban “one of the biggest threats to our business right now.”
He predicted this is able to end in the lack of as much as 2,500 casino jobs and tens of millions in lost state tax revenue. He supports a compromise proposal that will proceed to permit smoking away from table games and in areas where no worker could be forced to work.
Casino officials reject those claims, saying the arcades would do higher financially in the event that they attracted non-smoking customers who now avoid them.
“Casino executives keep making the same discredited claims and promoting a false compromise that will only continue to force us, their own employees, to breathe toxic air in our workplaces every day,” said Lamont White, a Borgata trader and one the leader of the casino worker non-smoking movement. “They don’t give a damn about cancer, heart disease, strokes, COPD and countless other illnesses that result from this unacceptable work environment that not every other worker in New Jersey has to deal with.”
Some states are again Internet gambling as a method to generate recent revenue. It is currently legal in New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Giannantonio said online gambling has helped Atlantic City’s physical casinos. Resorts has a successful online arm and is affiliated with sports betting operator DraftKings.
But Rob Norton, president of Cordish Gaming Group and the Live! Casinos, including properties in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Florida, said that gambling at Internet casinos has had a detrimental effect on brick-and-mortar casinos.
“It’s cannibalization,” Norton said. Speaking on behalf of the industry at large, he said: “The approach we are currently taking is to pit ourselves against ourselves.”
His point is disputed by others within the industry who say they’ve seen Internet gambling complement their brick-and-mortar casino business.
“It was additive for New Jersey,” Giannantonio said. Resorts, he said, has successfully integrated its customer loyalty program into its physical and online divisions.
Online sports betting has been “a funnel for I-gaming” and in-person players, he said.
“A lot of people who bet on sports online come to us to place a bet,” Giannantonio said.
All panelists cited illegal offshore gambling sites and land-based, unlicensed and unregulated slot machines as further threats to the casino industry.
