Atlantic City has numerous problems. As someone that has been going there since the inception of gambling on Memorial day weekend of 1978 I have seen it rise and seen it fall.
At over 30 years old many of the properties are showing their age. Some like Resorts are still primarily housed in structures much older than that.
Therefore I can understand you saying that many of the Pa. properties are beautiful they are new.
Imho they are just steel and glass and though nice don't have the character of many of the properties in A/C

You yourself worked at the Taj for many years, where else can you see milllion dollar chandeliers hanging in the lobby. Old fashioned? Too glitzy? perhaps but nevertheless something few are willing to invest in anymore.

Family oriented attractions are only a small part of what is wrong for most of that only comes into play during the warm months.
Unfortunately if one walks (and hardly anyone does) a block or two from the casino, safety can become and issue. The blight in many areas it still evident.

Right now Atlantic City is fighting to survive but they are fighting with the wrong people, themselves.
Instead of concentrating on competing with the Casinos or slot parlors of nearby states like Del. Ct. Pa. and N.Y. they merely do more and more to alienate their players
Several casinos have shunned their bus traffic having forgotten thet fast nickels are better than slow dollars.
At one time the "bus people" could look forward to a coin coupon and either a buffet coupon or a reduced rate meal. How much of that still exists? Very little. Meanwhile I continue to get coin coupons as high as $550 from places like the Sands in Bethlehem Pa. YES, I said $550
So tell me what would you do. go to A/C to get a free toaster or head for something a lot closer where you are a person not a number on a print out.

Am I down on A/C, yes, but I still go there, I was there just last weekend for 5 days but their attitude towards their customers has changed and not for the better. It's now all about how much they can suck out of your wallet.
Offers are down, promotions are few, cashback has been cut, machines don't pay as well, parties are non existant.

Here is but one example of what has happened. To become a premium black card player at the Taj you have to amass 10,000 tier points. You then have access to their premium player lounge but wait. If you don't have $10 in comps in your bank you don't get in.

This past weekend we received and invitation to the Super Bowl party. My wife went to the kiosk to print out her admission coupons and the message board said you need to accumulate 20 tier points first.
My wife went to customer service and said, look I played last night (I'm embarassed to tell you how much she invested..sounds better than lost LOL) and now you tell me I have to play to enter an event that you invited me for?
Sure she was going to play anyway but that wasn't the point.

While I'm on my soap box let me tell you a bit about their smoke and mirror promotions at the Super Bowl party everyone got a T shirt and a rub off card if you predicted the outcome of all 4 quarters by exactly guessing the last digit score of both teams correctly you would win $25,000 if you picked 3 you got $1,000 think of the odds they are totally astronomical needless to say, no one collected.
The folllowing Monday they had another rub off where you could win $500,000 if you correctly rubbed off 6 matching squares from a total of $30 you know that no one collected there either. Sure everyone got a $5 coupon and a few even won $500 but I think you get the point.

The prediction now is that when or should I say if Revel ever opens that 3 casinos that are on the brink will close Resorts which is already in the hands of creditors Hilton and Trump Marina.
Pinnacle has pulled out of A/C leaving a scarred lot where the Sands once stood. MGM is looking to follow suit with their share in Borgata and yesterday I as a stockholder received a letter informing me of another Trump bankruptcy.
Hopes were put on Revel as that would bring in some jobs as well as business but at what price?
Everyone predicted the market would grow when Borgata opened but what really happened was the pie slices got smaller.
Now that Revel is at least 50% complete with most of the construction being left as interior work, people wonder will it really be a plus or will the end result be worse.

There was talk of giving Revel a $500 million dollar tax break to give the investors some incentive to finish the construction and that fell through so once again construction has stopped.

Yes there are many problems, the economy, gas prices, smoking bans these are all the problems that the casino owners use as a crutch but as I once said,they would betterthink of the old Pogo comic strip where it was said we have met the enemy and it is us.

For the first time in December the 9 slot parlors in Pennsylavania out grossed all of Atlantic City in slot revenue and now this month figures for A/C show that only 2 casinos showed marginal increases while places like the Taj
had a drop of over $25%
I'm no genius, but it doesn't take one to figure this one out. You want the people to come back, give them a reason and stop blaming everyone but yourself.

OK, stepping down off my doom and gloom soap box but if anyone out there sees it any differently I certainly will listen for then I must have missed something altogether