Casino smoking and boosting in-person gambling are among challenges for Atlantic City in 2024

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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — After the confetti is swept away and the empty champagne bottles recycled in Atlantic Metropolis, 2024 will carry quite a few challenges and potential alternatives for the East Coast playing resort.

Essentially the most burning situation for Atlantic Metropolis within the new 12 months is prone to be whether or not state lawmakers approve a measure to ban smoking within the 9 casinos.

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Excessive-profile anti-crime and pedestrian security measures ought to present whether or not they, in actual fact, work. A brand new $100 million indoor water park on the Showboat lodge can have its first summer time season.

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And the bodily casinos will probably be watching carefully to see whether or not gamblers proceed to extra extensively embrace web playing and sports activities betting on the expense of doing it in particular person contained in the casinos.

Jane Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute at Stockton College, which research the Atlantic Metropolis playing and tourism market, believes 2024 might see a return to extra regular patterns after pandemic-related disruptions.

“There are a number of causes for optimism in waiting for 2024,” she stated. “With current beneficial properties within the inventory market and a stabilization of inflation, client confidence could also be bettering, which might result in elevated spending on journey and leisure.”

She stated current pay raises for on line casino and lodge employees have eased labor shortages considerably.

And regardless that web playing continues to develop, nongambling points of interest just like the Showboat water park and the brand new Dave and Busters arcade, bar and restaurant ought to assist entice new guests to the resort, she stated.

Mark Giannantonio, president of Resorts on line casino in addition to the On line casino Affiliation of New Jersey, stated the trade is upbeat about Atlantic Metropolis’s prospects within the new 12 months “as we additional rework Atlantic Metropolis into the main regional gaming and tourism vacation spot.”

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This may mark the fourth 12 months of a sustained push to shut a loophole within the state’s public smoking regulation that particularly exempted casinos from smoke-free workplaces. Regardless of ever-growing assist — a lot of the state Legislature has signed on as co-sponsors, and New Jersey’s governor guarantees he’ll signal it — the invoice has been bottled up in state authorities committees with out votes.

A December push fizzled when some lawmakers pivoted away from a full ban in favor of a compromise proposal favored by the on line casino trade that will construct enclosed smoking rooms through which workers would volunteer to work. That strategy is vehemently opposed by many on line casino employees who say nothing lower than a full ban can shield their well being and provides them the identical office protections that different employees in New Jersey are assured.

Smoking is presently allowed on 25% of the on line casino ground, however these areas are unfold out extensively over your entire playing space, with the impact that secondhand smoke is current and detectable even in nonsmoking sections.

“I’m hopeful that we are going to be in a smoke-free surroundings within the close to future,” stated Nicole Vitola, a Borgata supplier and one of many leaders of the push to ban smoking within the casinos. “It could have been a pleasant current this 12 months.”

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Different questions abound for Atlantic Metropolis in 2024: Can the casinos get again to and surpass the extent of enterprise they have been doing earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, not simply collectively however at every particular person property?

By way of cash gained from in-person gamblers — the casinos’ key enterprise metric — solely three casinos gained extra by the primary 11 months of this 12 months than they did over the identical interval in 2019, earlier than the pandemic. They’re the Borgata, Arduous Rock and Ocean. As a result of cash from web playing and sports activities betting should be shared with companions together with tech platforms and isn’t solely for the casinos to maintain, they view cash gained from gamblers on their very own premises as their key enterprise.

Will extra gamblers threat their cash on-line relatively than touring to Atlantic Metropolis to do it? Web playing introduced in almost $1.75 billion by the primary 11 months of this 12 months, and set a brand new month-to-month file in November.

Will the addition of extra safety cameras make the town safer?

And can a much-doubted venture to slim Atlantic Avenue — the principle street by the town’s downtown — from two lanes in every path to 1, reach chopping down pedestrian accidents with out tying the town into gridlocked knots on busy summer time weekends or main live performance nights? 5 casinos and a hospital are difficult the plan in courtroom; a listening to is ready for Jan. 26.

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Atlantic Metropolis is due for a government-funded seashore replenishment venture in 2024 to widen seashores which have grow to be eroded over time. Sand loss obtained so unhealthy within the north finish of the town that the Ocean on line casino paid $700,000 to have sand trucked in to what little remained of the seashore in entrance of its on line casino in Could.

Particular person casinos plan to reinvest hundreds of thousands into their properties within the new 12 months.

Ocean will renovate 506 lodge rooms at a value of $25 million earlier than summer time arrives. Caesars will open its Nobu Lodge venture with 85 rooms and suites in one of many remaining phases of guardian firm Caesars Leisure’s $420 million funding into its three Atlantic Metropolis properties.

The Golden Nugget plans to finish the primary part of a $6 million renovation of 100 rooms and suites.

And 2024 may very well be the 12 months important choices are made on an formidable proposal to redevelop the previous Bader Discipline airport property right into a $2.7 billion automobile-themed housing, leisure and recreation venture.

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Observe Wayne Parry on X, previously Twitter, at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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