East Coast Gambler

Most of the Atlantic City casinos are getting together to form a partnership to help promote Atlantic City as a whole.

Harrah’s, Trump, Tropicana and Borgata Friday formed a group called the Atlantic City Partnership (ACP), according to Mark Juliano, CEO of Trump Entertainment Resorts and president of the New Jersey Casino Association. The ACP will focus on marketing efforts, including building a new brand for the city.

The Commission hopes the Partnership will strongly consider some of the[se] ideas:

• Expansion of the Boardwalk area to reflect a true New Jersey Boardwalk experience – potentially including many of the leading Boardwalk purveyors who are present in Cape May, Wildwood and Ocean City boardwalks;
• More effective use of marina facilities;
• Development of a South Boardwalk;
• Development of other improvements, such as Boardwalk rides, a NASCAR track, a drive-in theater, etc.;

This is an excellent idea and it’s shocking that it’s taken two years of declining revenue to form this group.  Common sense would have thought a tourism board or the businesses association was already operating something like this.  In any event, this is a smart move and could do good things for the market.

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Here’s a recent trip report from JMP to the Atlantic City Hilton.  It seems as if the Atlantic City Hilton Full-Pay Video Poker area may be a real deal.  Unfortunately, I don’t see them taking my business, because of location and casino demographics.  I love the moxy off adding good games to their mix in an effort to stay alive.  On to JMP.

Note: this is an actual trip report containing an actual story of actual gambling!
I recently had the good fortune of enjoying the best of both worlds when it comes to going down the Jersey Shore: we spent a week with another family to OC (where even the games of chance on their boardwalk always pay out), but the other husband and I also managed to get away Monday night to AC for some grown-up fun (and games that…. Well…. Don’t always pay out…. More on that later).

Despite the fact that both C and I like the Borgata, I wanted to be on the Boardwalk to see what it’s like on a summer weeknight.  Leading up to the ‘big night’, I was settled on Trump Plaza for their abundant full-pay 25 cent VP, but thanks to this very blog, I knew about their A/C woes.  So I called an audible to the AC Hilton b/c I had heard about their new full-pay VP area.

I strongly recommend taking local roads when going from OC to AC, but if you want to grab a coffee or something before heading out, make a detour because there won’t be a Starbucks or a Dunkin’ Donuts anywhere between the two cities.  On the plus side, you’ll get great views of AC the closer you get, especially of the ‘video’ playing on Harrah’s Waterfront Tower if you happen to travel at night.  Having said that, I’ll talk about the best way to get home later on.

As you can probably guess, we did NOT take a detour so C could get coffee, so upon parking at the AC Hilton, we immediately had to walk up to the Trop for his fix.  (Ed: I would have gone to Cappuccino’s at the Hilton for coffee, I don’t like waiting.) Despite the darkness, we could see that some upgrades have been made to the facades of many of the stores and possibly one or two new establishments as well (for example, I don’t think I’ve noticed a ‘Playcade’ before).  Despite the upgrades, the boards were dead at around 10:30 pm on this Monday night.  I think they need better overhead lighting, too.  When we got to the Trop, we were really dismayed to find the Starbucks was ALREADY CLOSED!  What does it say about the Trop (or AC in general) when the Starbucks Corporation takes a look at the numbers from that location and says “You know what?  You guys can close early from now on.”?

With caffeine in our systems (I had a Pepsi in the car on the way up), we proceeded to the AC Hilton for some VP and some free alcohol to counter said caffeine’s effects.  The full-pay area was VERY easy to find.  We’re not just talking about 2 banks of 6 machines each here; they have what must be a 50×30 area filled with various forms/denominations of full-pay, with signs advertising as such all above it.  It was a lot bigger than vpfree2 made it seem.

Since the casino, overall, was pretty dead, we had no problems finding adjoining machines.  C is sorta new to VP, so naturally he hit a straight flush pretty quickly.  I, on the other hand, proceeded to grind my way through about 1.5 hours, slowly bleeding credits.  Long story short, you need more than your fair share of full-houses and quads to just break even at VP and I was hitting at a level a bit below that.  Somewhere in there, C took his winnings over to the $5 craps table, only to return 20-30 minutes later with a story about a guy hurling the dice overhand thinking he was Johan Santana, but in reality he was more like Ollie Perez (the dice kept leaving the table).

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Here’s the latest edition of Seven Stars Insider.  This is an easy read and an excellent resource for Harrah’s players.  Head over to Seven Stars Insider to sign up for the newsletter.  There is lots of new and useful information in this edition (some of which I’m going to reference in future posts), so read on for all the goods.

Seven Stars Insider – August 2010

NOTE: While this newsletter was originally designed exclusively for Seven Stars members, there is useful information for anyone who has a Total Rewards® player’s card and/or plays/stays at a Harrah’s property.  Please feel free to pass this on to your friends.  Back issues of the Seven Stars Insider newsletter are available online at http://sites.google.com/site/sevenstarsinsider/ .  You will need Adobe Acrobat to view them, but this is a free program available at www.adobe.com.

Seven Stars Hotline
Since I started the Web site and this newsletter I’ve been surprised – but not really! – how many Seven Stars (and Diamond) players have contacted me with questions or problems that their local Total Rewards desk and/or host cannot (or will not) answer.  Wouldn’t it be a nice benefit if Harrah’s introduced a dedicated toll-free hotline and/or email address where Seven Stars members could turn for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems?

Harrah’s Reports Loss; Confirms Discussions Regarding New Philly Casino
Citing reduced customer spending in all of its U.S. regions and asset write-downs, Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. has reported a second-quarter net loss of $274 million, compared with a profit of $2.29 billion a year earlier, Bloomberg News reports.  Sales fell 2.2 percent to $2.22 billion, the news service said.  Harrah’s said that, for the quarter ended June 30, it recorded a $52.3 million charge related to an investment in a Foxwoods casino project in South Philadelphia.  Last month Harrah’s confirmed that “discussions have opened up again” regarding its role to take over as a 33 percent investor, in addition to developing and managing the property; however, the company said it was not at liberty “to discuss the substance” of those talks at this time.  The statement was in response to an earlier report by the Philadelphia Inquirer.  According to the Inquirer, Harrah’s holds a promissory note of $67 million for the 16-acre parcel from a group of local investors.  Harrah’s said it acquired the note when it purchased Caesars Entertainment in 2005.  “Over the years we have had numerous discussions around different deal structures involving the note and other roles,” Harrah’s said.

Las Vegas Diamond Clubs
It’s official. . .you now can take out your favorite cocktail (in a plastic cup) from the four Diamond Clubs in Las Vegas.  The policy was quietly changed about a month ago.  Up until then, only beer and bottled water were allowed out of the clubs – unless, of course, you were able to sneak one past the employee at the door.  [Some folks were known to ask the bartenders to fill an empty Perrier or water bottle with gin or vodka, or decant their clear drinks themselves.]  It’s about time.  Most other Diamond Clubs allow drinks to be taken out; plus, it seems to me that Harrah’s would prefer their customers to be out on the casino floor rather than warming a seat in the club.

Sports Bar or Diamond Club?
It’s bad enough that nearly every television in the Vegas Diamond Clubs (and practically every other club in the country) is tuned to ESPN or some other sporting event, but, according to one of the bartenders at Caesars Palace, the TV over the bar must be tuned to sports.  The “policy” came to light recently when two customers sitting at the bar asked for the channel to be switched to CNN.  [The other two sitting at the bar didn’t care which channel was on.]  Whatever happened to listening to the customer?

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Frequent guest on ECG, JMP, took a trip a little south and off the coast to the Hollywood Casino in Charles Town, West Viginia and shares his thoughts on the casino, food and gambling.

JMP Went to a Casino in West Virginia and All You Get is a Trip Report!

Okay, lest you readers think ol’ JMP has a) developed a major gambling problem and b) has been 86ed from every casino in PA and NJ which would lead him to seek out gambling in the hills of WV, let me explain: I spent the better part of last weekend supporting the graveyard shift at work in their Herndon VA office.  I had my mornings and afternoons free and, prior to departing PA, didn’t even consider the possibility of visiting a casino.  Then, I saw the signs for Hollywood Casino in WV on the way down (via 15 South, not 95).  I still didn’t seriously consider it because, quite frankly, it’s been a long time since grade school and US geography class, so I had no idea that there are parts of WV that’s about 1 hour away from Northern VA.

Charles Town WV (not to be confused with the State Capitol of CharlesTON) is in one of those parts and, like I already said, they have the most recently minted ‘Hollywood Casino’ in the Penn National Gaming portfolio.  Prior to Fourth of July weekend and live table games, it was merely “Charles Town Races and Slots”, but the arrival of table games also brought the Hollywood addition, both in name and in space.
Since I don’t have nearly the history in WV that I’ve had in SE PA, I’ll have to go to Wikipedia for some background (hope you don’t mind!): the race track has been there since 1933 and slots (VLTs) came in the late 90s.  There’s also a 150 room inn, although it’s not attached to the casino.

Armed with the knowledge that, yes, it was ‘close’, that table games had arrived and brought renovations with it and that their ‘Epic Buffet’ was much better than average (more on that later), I decided that a journey to WV was a good way to kill an afternoon. I began my journey around noon, taking 267 West to 7 West.  Soon, however, the luxury of these 4 lane highways gave way to the rural-ity of VA 9, which was one lane in each direction and rather curvy in parts.  I strongly recommend only taking this particular route during the day; if you want to go to the casino at night, try and find a route that incorporates more of 15 and 340.  If you choose to go during the day, though, you will be rewarded with some stunning views as valleys and such open up before you.  It reminded me in many ways of driving in Ireland, minus the sheep.  Oh, and if you’re listening to the rock station DC 101, be prepared to have it turn into a Christian rock station immediately upon crossing the border into WV.  Spooky, right?  Not quite ‘Dueling Banjos’, but jarring nonetheless.  Luckily, DC 101 returned a few minutes later.  But I digress…

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It shouldn’t be a surprise that Las Vegas earns more than Atlantic City on things other than gambling.  However, it’s a little shocking – not surprising – to see how much Las Vegas’ percentage of revenue comes from sources outside of gambling versus Atlantic City.

…But Atlantic City still has a long way to go before it can reach Las Vegas’ level, where about 60 percent of revenue comes from nongaming ventures, said Cory Morowitz, of Morowitz Gaming Advisors LLC, in Galloway Township.

Last year, nongaming revenue in Atlantic City was probably less than 10 percent after discounting comped goods, Morowitz said.

“I don’t think we can get to 60 percent,” he added. “We just don’t have the room size that Las Vegas has. Rooms are the biggest driver.”

As I mentioned there’s no surprise that the nongaming revenues are greater in Las Vegas than Atlantic City.  Las Vegas has put a lot of effort into creating those revenue streams for better or worse.

Borgata was the first casino to really put effort into creating nongaming revenues and Harrah’s Resort and Tropicana have followed suit by enhancing their club experiences.  Bally’s is starting down that road by renovating their properties (Claridge and Wild Wild West) and Harrah’s is considering rebranding Showboat.

These are all good steps to separating Atlantic City from the rest of the East Coast casinos that have been popping up over the past few years.

In addition to expanding their club scene I think (actually, I know) that better restaurants and more shows need to follow to grow this revenue stream and separate Atlantic City from the rest of the casinos.

Gwen Stefani - No Doubt - Borgata

Photo: Flickr: woundsarebleeding

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Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans!  I was away in Atlantic City this weekend and that made for a slow start to the week for ECG as I got sick (two trips in a row) and didn’t get home until Monday night.  With that said, here are the few items from last week.

• Happy 4th of July
• Borgata – You are NOT connected
• Bally’s Customer Service – Fail
• Kardashian Khaos: Kim’s and Koutney’s Oh My

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