In 1984, state lawmakers created the Casinos Reinvestment Development Authority, which required casinos to pay 2.5 percent of gambling revenue to the state or reinvest 1.25 percent in community projects. Other revenues went to fund a variety of projects around the state. The 1977 Casino Control Act called on casinos to reinvest 2 percent of gross revenues in Atlantic City, but the casinos failed to live up to that promise and most of the tax revenues ended up in state coffers. In an effort to meet the promised requirements for investment in Atlantic City, the state government attempted to steer some of the revenues toward local benefit. The shore resort’s poverty rate increased and its double-digit unemployment rate held steady. The number of independent restaurants decreased during the casino era. They spent the bulk of their time and money inside the casinos, leaving the surrounding businesses to struggle. Many Atlantic City gamblers were day-trippers who arrived on buses, enticed by discounted fares and other incentives. The casinos also created nearly 43,000 jobs at the industry’s peak in 2006, which also saw a record $5.2 billion in revenue.ĭespite such gains, more than thirty years of casinos achieved little for Atlantic City. As gamblers flocked to Atlantic City, tourism increased from about 7 million visitors annually to more than 30 million. The Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City opened in 1978, the first of twelve neon-lit, high-rise casino hotels. The Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City opened in 1930 and was converted to a casino in 1981 after gambling was legalized in the city. Until then, the only other state to allow such gambling was Nevada, which legalized casinos in 1931. But the gains often came with significant social and economic costs in Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and other communities in the region.Ĭasinos began to open in the region in the late 1970s when, after much debate, New Jersey lawmakers legalized casinos in Atlantic City as a way to revitalize the once-thriving resort known as America’s Playground.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, casino gambling became an accepted public policy in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other states desperate to generate tax revenue and create jobs. Philadelphia, the Place that Loves You Back.

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