Christie fights gambling in NYC shadow as Atlantic City sputters
Once a week, New Jersey resident Joe Coleman drives 20 minutes into Pennsylvania to play slots at the Parx Casino in Bensalem. While it doesn’t have the beach or glitz of Atlantic City — an hour and a half the other way in his home state — it costs him less in gas and tolls.
“I’d never come here if it wasn’t so close,” Coleman, 48, an unemployed plant manager from Bordentown, said in front of Parx at 11 p.m. on a Sunday, up $20 after a night of slots.
New gambling halls including Parx have walloped the industry in New Jersey. Its casinos, all in Atlantic City near the state’s southern end, reported $3.3 billion in revenue last year. That’s down 37 percent from a peak of $5.2 billion in 2006, the same year Pennsylvania’s first slots parlor opened. Last year, that state’s gambling revenue jumped 10 percent to $3.14 billion after it introduced table games in 2010. (Dopp, Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-26/christie-fights-gambling-in-nyc-shadow-as-atlantic-city-sputters.html
