July Slots Revenue Down Again for A.C.

Last year in July, the state of New Jersey ended up in a stalemate over the budget and cut all necessary personnel from their jobs for three days. This meant that the casino regulators could not go to work. If the regulators aren’t there, the slots can’t run – leaving the casinos with their doors closed for three long days. Needless to say, slots revenue suffered due to the lack of clientele coming in to play.

Even with all of this, the Atlantic City casinos still did better than they did this year – and this year the slots were running the whole time. The casinos did not close down this year, but their slots customers are still going to greener pastures.

The month of July showed a decrease over July 2006 by 2.3%. The Casino Control Commission said that they only brought in $469.6 million last month. Prolific slots in New York and Pennsylvania are leaving A.C. with less slots revenue to report. Even though the other states do not allow table gaming yet, they are allowing the slots and that is what most people play.

The competition is killing the city, as they cannot compete with the drive with gas prices being so high. People are not willing to spend the extra money in gas to come play A.C.’s slots when they can play them in their own backyard.

Add to all of this the partial smoking ban on the slots floor and you have a recipe for disaster. Experts say that the trend seems to be that they will continue to lose slots revenue over the remaining months of the year, and if that happens this will be the first year in the city’s history where the year before made more than the one that followed it.


 

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