Sports betting could help keep Atlantic City ahead of Philadelphia

With casinos coming to Philadelphia and the rest of Pennsylvania, Atlantic City could use another gambling option to keep visitors coming. In less than two years, two sparkling new casinos will rise along the Delaware River waterfront in Philadelphia. With 3,000 slot machines each and sitting just a 15-minute drive away from hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the river, these casinos, approved Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, could be a huge draw. They might lure thousands of gamblers away from Atlantic City’s casino games. New Jersey lawmakers shouldn’t let this development pass lightly. Before the first slot machine bells start sounding and coins start dropping in Philadelphia, New Jersey lawmakers ought to give New Jersey’s multi-billion-dollar casino industry a leg up by approving sports wagering found in Nevada casinos. There are many reasons why it’s now time for the New Jersey Legislature to open this door that it has previously left closed. The future Philadelphia casinos are just one of those reasons, albeit a very important and tangible reason. *Decline expected* Atlantic City’s casino industry generates $6.6 billion a year in revenue, $9 billion in annual capital investment and provides 45,000 jobs for people working in hotels, casino floors and in the construction trades, Joseph Corbo Jr., president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, said in October. The city’s 11 casinos can expect a decline in gaming revenue of 5.5 percent because of Pennsylvania’s slot machines, according to analysts Robert LaFleur and Robert Shore of the Susquehanna Financial Group. “We believe this is somewhat less than expectations, and is a positive for Atlantic City operators,” LaFleur and Shore wrote in their analysis. The thing that will keep many Pennsylvania gamblers coming to Atlantic City and pouring money into the New Jersey economy, is the city’s other gambling options, such as its table games, and attractions such as spas, stores and restaurants. Yet sports gambling offers potential to not just give Pennsylvania gamblers another reason to keep coming to Atlantic City, and perhaps help cut into that 5.5 percent gaming revenue loss, but also to lure back gamblers from New York and Connecticut who now are regulars at casinos in those states. Some say allowing sports wagering in the casinos is too much, and it takes the state down a slippery slope. However, the fact of the matter is that sports gambling is a horse that’s already left the barn. Nevada casinos have had it for years. Oregon runs a statewide, lottery-style pool on NFL games during football season. And, under a 1992 federal law, both Delaware and Montana also have the right to allow sports betting. Additionally, Americans in all 50 states wager millions each week on sporting events via numerous Internet sites that accept bets on professional and college sporting events. Internet gambling is a multi-billion-dollar industry that state governments, such as New Jersey, don’t see a dime from because there are no taxes. It’s illegal, but there’s little the federal government can do to stop it. And, of course, there are the old illegal “bookies” whom people use to wager on games. New revenue In a state strapped for money in which taxes are constantly rising and in which those who want to bet on sports can already do so through dubious means, it makes sense to bring that betting inside the casino walls. It could be better regulated and it could generate more dollars for the state, more jobs in the casinos and more visitors to Atlantic City. Casino officials told state lawmakers in 2004 that legal sports wagering in the casinos could generate $60 million in taxable revenue. And if four states can have it as a legal activity, it stands to reason New Jersey would be able to mount a challenge — either in court or in Congress — that could allow it here. In February, the Assembly Tourism and Gaming Committee approved a bill to allow sports wagering in Atlantic City’s casinos, although the bill never made it to a full floor vote in the state Assembly and Senate. But if the Legislature is concerned enough about the casino industry to grant the gaming halls a special exemption from the statewide smoking ban, logic says lawmakers should allow the casinos to expand their gaming options and potentially draw in new customers, or, more importantly, keep the ones they have from fleeing to Philadelphia. Sports gambling is not the complete answer to replacing the revenue that will be lost in Atlantic City because of casino competition in Pennsylvania. It probably isn’t even the main answer — more stores and restaurants and bigger, splashier casino-resorts like the Borgata will surely do more to keep gamblers in Atlantic City. But sports gambling could be an important piece of the puzzle, one that keeps some gamblers who live in Pennsylvania coming and one that attracts new visitors who might never have come to Atlantic City before. It’s something state lawmakers should move to allow.