Atlantic City’s efforts to recapture some of the tourism dollars it has lost to casino competition in recent years finally appear to be working. Nine years ago, the city’s casinos started realizing they needed to offer more than just gambling if they still wanted visitors. They doubled down on expensive investments like additional hotel towers, restaurants, swimming pools, spas, shopping, nightclubs and concert venues. Now, cash sales at non-gambling outlets within casinos represent 28.5 percent of revenue, up from 22.3 percent two years ago, and bars have increased their payrolls by nearly 39 percent in the past two years, according…

With proposals to expand casino gambling to other parts of New Jersey gaining momentum, Atlantic City is faced with an existential choice: fight to the end to try to keep it from happening, or accept it as inevitable and extract the most concessions it can from new, in-state competitors. It’s a question the city and its political and business supporters need to answer soon. Two bills that would ask voters whether to amend the state constitution and expand gambling beyond Atlantic City have been proposed, and lawmakers are touting casino projects in the Bergen County Meadowlands, Jersey City, Newark and…

Wall Street experts have seen the future of Atlantic City casinos — and there will be fewer places to play. A panel of analysts speaking at a regional gambling conference Tuesday in Atlantic City said a market that has already lost one casino this year still has too many. Adam Rosenberg, a managing director with Goldman Sachs, said “reducing capacity” is already underway, which he considers positive. Srihari Rajagopalan, a debt analyst with UBS, agreed. “You are seeing the market right-size, which is a positive,” Rajagopalan said. “There are unprofitable casinos shutting down.” Earlier this month, the CEO of Caesars…

Card Player – One lawmaker in New Jersey is still advocating for a casino outside of Atlantic City. According to the Associated Press, at a regional gambling conference Tuesday in Atlantic City, Assemblyman Ralph Caputo reiterated that a casino in the Meadowlands would greatly benefit the Garden State. Discussions of such a possibility have been “growing stronger.” “A casino in north Jersey, to be taxed at 50 or 60 percent, we could do a billion dollars a year in that location,” Caputo said. “We’ve got to be fighting for those customers. That’s what Pennsylvania is doing. That’s what New York…

Press of Atlantic City –  An Atlantic City man has hired an attorney to clarify whether registered medical marijuana users must be accommodated in casino smoking sections after he was told he could not take his prescription at Revel Casino Hotel. Daniel Price, a 23-year-old medical marijuana card holder, said he was turned away from Revel and directed to the Boardwalk when he asked a security guard if he could use the substance in late April. A registered medical marijuana patient since February, Price is prescribed the drug to treat both seizures and irritable bowel disease. “I asked the security…

Bloomberg – Caesars Entertainment Corp. (CZR), the largest operator of casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is looking for ways to reduce capacity in the struggling market, including closing properties. “We are looking at all of our options to reduce the cost of doing business here,” Chief Executive Officer Gary Loveman said yesterday on a conference call after reporting a wider first-quarter loss. “All the businesses in A.C. are under tremendous pressure.” Caesars has been struggling to remain solvent amid a glut of casinos and weak consumer spending, following a 2008 leveraged buyout that left the company with about $23…