It's hard for me to admit this, as a near-lifelong resident of the East Coast, but until a month or so ago, when I was shooting a Web series, I had never visited Atlantic City. I had, of course, read about its decline from its glory days in the early 20th century, and about its supposed revitalization by casino gambling. I've seen advertisements promoting casinos, and bus trips to the casinos, and heard stories from friends and relatives about the casinos. So I fell into the trap of thinking that it must all be true--casinos have been a great thing for Atlantic City, and would obviously be equally great everywhere (including Maryland, where several casinos have already opened, with a new one about to open in downtown Baltimore). After all, apart from the casino stories, most of what I knew about Atlantic City came from the board game "Monopoly," which uses the names of AC streets for its board spaces.
Well, all I can say from having been there is that you could color me unimpressed. The casinos themselves were gaudy and massive without otherwise being exciting, or even modestly inventive. And they appeared to be anything but crowded, if the level of street traffic was any indication. And keep in mind that this was on an early summer weekend, a time where people's thoughts ordinarily turn toward recreation. Not a whole lot of recreating was going on. And, from what I could see of the city apart from the casinos, nobody was going to go there to recreate for any reason whatsoever. After a while, I found myself longing for a chance to pass "Go" and collect $200; that would have been more fun than anything else I saw.
Which is why this did not strike me as a surprise. It probably wouldn't have surprised me in any case because, in an economic slump like the one from which we have been slowly emerging, entertainment spending is the first budget item most households cut. You can't live without food, clothes, shelter and transportation but, when it comes to leisure time, there are always ways to economize. It's probably safe to say that the people who have kept AC's casinos afloat have been the professional gamblers and the addicts--the latter, of course, being the people who shouldn't be there at all.
That vulnerability to economic hard times, combined with the over-expansion of gambling by state and local governments in the wake of AC's initial successes, is why governments need to end their own fiscal addiction to gaming revenues as a cowardly cop-out from what they should be doing--making grown-up decisions about taxes and spending. Even when the current recovery reaches its peak, the gaming money isn't going to be the Mississippi River of income most politicians have up until now thought that it would be. There are simply too many gaming venues, both physical and online. And the severity of the past downtown is going to encourage a lot of folks to be more cautious about non-essential spending.
I loved it when then-Governor Robert Ehrlich of Maryland described casino gambling for the state as a "no-brainer." Leaving aside the fact he's well-qualified to make no-brainer decisions, it takes no brains to see casinos as an alternative to making hard choices--just as it takes no brains to fail to see the fiscal fallacy in that thinking. It is past time for politicians everywhere to level with their citizens and tell them the truth: legalized gambling isn't a pot of public gold. It's a source of public vice that still leaves us begging the question of how to pay our bills.
As for Atlantic City, I wish it the best of luck. Maybe they should bring in Parker Brothers and work with them to create a "Monopolyland" theme park. That way, maybe, just maybe, someone besides the house would have a chance to win.
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