Atlantic City's casinos in dire straights

Profiles

Atlantic City

Atlantic City is best known for its casinos and gaming. But all is not happy in the city of bright lights. First, there is the issue of an impending workers strike. Secondly, there is also the problem of reaching market saturation in the Atlantic City gaming industry. And now with the reopening of the Revel, other casinos are worried that their business may suffer as a result of the increased competition.

Luckily you can enjoy casino gaming on the move nowadays and can avoid having the strikes impact on your gaming enjoyment. Even if you are not from Atlantic City; moving your gaming to an online casino is a good idea as there are many advantages that gaming at an online casino brings about. Being able to play the casino games you love wherever and whenever you want is a luxury, and makes this an easy and convenient activity to do in your spare time. In addition, online casinos will usually give you some pretty amazing new player welcome bonuses; this will help you to optimize your winnings in the long run -and it is definitely something that you will not find at your local, traditional casino!

Dealing with the first issue, the biggest casino workers' union has threatened to go on strike on July 1st if a new contract with better wages is not agreed upon before this date. Local 45 of the Unite -HERE union represents workers from five of the eight casinos in Atlantic City, totally 10 000 employees. These workers are employed to do various jobs in the casino, such as wait staff, barmen, luggage carriers as well as kitchen staff. Without these people showing up for work next month, the day to day operation of these casinos will be greatly impacted, and people will be discouraged from going to play games there as service will be slow.

The second issue regarding the reopening of the Revel mega resort comes in the context of there being an overall increased financial pressure on casinos in the area. Already the eight current casinos in AC are facing major competition from two potential casinos in North Jersey, as well as eight more that are scheduled to open in neighboring states in the next two years. The market has become increasingly saturated in the past decade, with supply of casinos well outranking the demand in the area.

While it appears that the AC casinos are already under financial pressure, they have not been treating their employees fairly. Over the last twelve years, employees have only seen their wages increase by a paltry 80 cents per hour. This is certainly not enough for a living wage and to keep up with an ever increasing inflation rate. The union is hoping that the threat of the strike will be sufficient to get their demands met. The last strike which they held in 2004 lasted for over 30 days, and the casinos know how much they stand to lose in revenue due to being understaffed and unable to provide certain services for their clients.