Casino revenues declined last year for the first time in Atlantic City, and the river of free lunches seems to be drying up, says the Associated Press.

Since the first casino opened here 30 years ago, tour buses depositing herds of senior citizens out for the afternoon at the gambling house doorstep has been a big part of Atlantic City casino culture. It’s now one the industry is trying to move away from — gently — so as not to antagonize loyal patrons as it seeks more affluent bettors.

The amount of comps handed out in Atlantic City declined last year by 2.4 percent. Six casinos actually spent more on giveaways last year, while five spent less. Two of those, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, and the Tropicana Casino and Resort, were significantly down.

Charles Lafferty, a retiree from Prospect Park, Pa., says he can feel it.

“You can definitely tell it’s slowing down,” he said as he spoke with friends in the lobby of the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort. “One woman we come down with used to get hundreds of dollars at a time. Now she says it’s a lot less.”

It’s important to keep people like Lafferty happy: He lives eight minutes from a racetrack slots parlor in Pennsylvania but comes to Atlantic City because they make him feel like a big deal.

“They give you free drinks here, and we get to stay overnight for free sometimes,” he said. “We like that.”

Atlantic City’s casinos are suffering from the economic slowdown and the fact that the gambling industry’s most profitable consumers are more interested in Las Vegas:

But Nick Danna, a senior equity analyst at Sterne Agee & Leach, said turning off the freebie spigot will be hard to do.

“It’s a difficult culture to break,” he said. “The expectation is still there; the customers are used to it.

“There are certain customers that Atlantic City really shouldn’t attract anymore because they’re just not profitable,” he said. “Then there are other customers they’d like to comp less, but it’s very difficult because they (the customers) are used to it.”

Danna said the real opportunity for Atlantic City is in customers who currently look down on the resort, still viewing it as the domain of elderly people who clamber off buses with buffet coupons in hand. These folks tend to favor Las Vegas.

Slowdown Hurting Gambler’s Casino Comps [AP]
(Photo:saitowitz)

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