By Samantha Williams
Last year the gambling industry in Atlantic City had their revenues fall by 5.7% compared to the revenues earned at the close of the year 2006. This is the first time that the industry in the city experienced a loss of revenue to this extent since gambling started in that area in 1978. In analyzing this fall in revenue earnings, it was observed that eleven casinos in Atlantic City earned $4.92 billion in the year 2007, a drop from $5.21 billion, a figure earned during the year 2006. It was found that only three out of the eleven casinos in the city had an increased turn-over.
The main reason for this fall in revenue was the money earned from the slot machines, where the turn-over fell by 8.9%, while the earnings from the table games rose by 3%. The chief executive of Trump Entertainment Resorts, the company which operates three casinos in the Atlantic City, comments that, it was because of Pennsylvania that caused the revenues in the city to fall that much. The real impact, as he puts it, was mainly due to the opening of the slot parlors in Pennsylvania, and that had managed to draw the crowd away from the Atlantic City. More-over, the partial smoking ban in the casinos in the city was also a partial factor of the loss.
Ceasers Atlantic City was the only casino in the city that made sizable revenue earning, which saw an increase in earnings by 5.1% in the year 2007 compared to what they earned in the year 2006. The other casino, the Harrah’s Atlantic City, which is considered to be the dominating casino in the market, also earned higher revenue, but only restricted to earnings of 1.6% over the last year.
Pub and Hotel owner pulls the plug on poker machines
He could not stand people losing their money. A pub and hotel owner in Queensland, Australia, pulled the plugs out of the poker machines that he had, because he could not stand his patrons to be in tears after losing every cent that they had with them. Roger Okalyi, the Scarborough Hotel owner, stopped having poker machines in his establishment about two months ago, and proposes to sell those along with the license that he has. He says that he is willing to face the loss of revenue, but could never allow his patrons to lose in a way that left them in tears. These machines, he says, better go, since these poker machines just pray on people who cannot afford to gamble.
Okalyi has seen that, day after day, people would come in his hotel to gamble and lose everything and leave in tears. He has seen this to happen many a time and he is now getting rid of these machines and is willing to face the loss in earnings for a better cause. He goes on to say that at least he can have a good night sleep from now on.
He plans to create a family room out of the room where he had his poker machines. He will have pool tables and video game machines in that room. An “anti-pokies” campaigner, Tim Costello, says that it has been a commendable move by Okalyi, and it is inspiring to find that a publican is concerned with the lives of people much ahead of this monitory gains.
