Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Tables and Figures
- Chronology
- Introduction
- 1 We Are for Gambling: The Pre-Casino Years and Casino Legalization
- 2 Let the Gaming Begin: A New Era for Atlantic City
- 3 A Winning Bet? Success and Struggle in the 1980s
- 4 Recession and Recovery: Turning a Casino Corner
- 5 Casino Magnets: New Immigrants and Atlantic City Opportunity
- 6 Big Visions: Competition, Consolidation and the Great Tunnel-Connector War of the 1990s
- 7 New Stylings: Finance, Retail and Challenges at the Turn of the Century
- 8 Atlantic City and the American Casino Era
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - New Stylings: Finance, Retail and Challenges at the Turn of the Century
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Tables and Figures
- Chronology
- Introduction
- 1 We Are for Gambling: The Pre-Casino Years and Casino Legalization
- 2 Let the Gaming Begin: A New Era for Atlantic City
- 3 A Winning Bet? Success and Struggle in the 1980s
- 4 Recession and Recovery: Turning a Casino Corner
- 5 Casino Magnets: New Immigrants and Atlantic City Opportunity
- 6 Big Visions: Competition, Consolidation and the Great Tunnel-Connector War of the 1990s
- 7 New Stylings: Finance, Retail and Challenges at the Turn of the Century
- 8 Atlantic City and the American Casino Era
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
After a few years of dizzying events, deals, projects, suits and counter-suits, the twentieth anniversary year of Resorts's 1978 opening provided a good opportunity for reflection. What had the legalization gamble wrought for the casino community in the two decades since gamblers literally swamped the one legal casino on the east coast? Early in 1998, the community had a chance to document the positive stories of the casino era when the National Gaming Impact Study Commission came to town. The NGIS commission included anti-gambling, ‘Focus on the Family’ leader James Dobson and Kay James, NGIS Chairperson and Dobson's associate on the ‘Focus on the Family’ board. To his chagrin, Dobson listened to numerous stories of the casinos’ positive impacts on various individuals: city officials, casino managers and rank-and-file employees. At one point during the hearings, Dobson, who probably based his perception of Atlantic City on the negative national publicity of the 1980s, became agitated because so much testimony was positive – something he found incredible. He attacked New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli for advocating for the casinos and complained that
We need more balance in the presentations. We make these site visits to hear the pros and cons. There must be problems that need to be addressed, but we're not hearing them. We need to hear from both sides.
As the Commission pulled out of town, Congressman Frank LoBiondo remarked that
The commission tried to dig up dirt. They made several visits to Atlantic City to find witnesses who they thought would spin this in a bad light. They weren't successful because that's not the story, [if it was] they would have found plenty of negatives.
Even if there were problems, in 1998 the commission could not easily point to Atlantic City as a community that needed some kind of federal regulation or taxation, as many who testified believed was the commission's goal.
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- Gambling on the American DreamAtlantic City and the Casino Era, pp. 175 - 214Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014