Associated Press
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - For the past 20 years, the typical Atlantic City gambler has been a woman, about 55 years old, who drove to the resort a few times a month. There she sat for hours, by herself, putting quarter after quarter into the slots.
Pete Borstelmann is a different kind of gambler. He's young (22 years old) and has little interest in the 42,016 slot machines Atlantic City has to offer.
Borstelmann plays roulette. On a recent night, he was at Borgata with his girlfriend, 21-year-old Valerie Geraci, and they were milking their $200 bankroll for all it was worth.
Borstelmann represents a new breed of gambler in Atlantic City. Because of young people like him, table games, which went out of style with the leisure suit, are suddenly back in vogue.
"There's just more excitement at the tables," Borstelmann said.
Just a few years ago, casinos had all but written off table games. They were for old men. They were expensive to operate. And they weren't for a generation raised on video games.
Every year, a greater percentage of the casinos' win came from slot machines.
But with the rising popularity of poker and television shows like "Las Vegas," table games are making a comeback.
True, they might never again be the driver of a casino's profit: Today, roughly 75 percent of Atlantic City's casino revenues come from the slots. But they are enjoying a resurgence, thanks to the 20-somethings who seek the camaraderie and cachet that bellying up to the tables has to offer.
"It's in - it's retro," said Greg Reece, a 41-year-old Washington, D.C., marketing executive who was playing blackjack at Borgata on a recent Friday. "I suppose the kids want to be like me. I can't imagine why."
In Atlantic City, analysts attribute the change largely to Borgata, the $1 billion casino that opened in July. Since August, the amount the city's 12 casinos have won from the tables has increased at a higher rate than the slot win.
Michael Pollock, publisher of the Gaming Industry Observer, predicts table games will become more important to Atlantic City as nearby states begin to legalize slots at their racetracks.
"Borgata has shown that tables can still be a growth area, that the prevailing wisdom wasn't particularly valid any longer," Pollock said.
Borgata's chief executive, Bob Boughner, said he realized casinos were overlooking an untapped market when he came to A.C. in the late 1990s. He found Atlantic City's rush to go after the slot customer accelerated after casinos opened in Connecticut in the mid-1990s, offering "a far more compelling product" for table players, he said.
In Atlantic City, the casinos sought to maximize their profits by dismantling pits and lounges to make way for more slots, which are cheaper to operate. Thus the further decline in table play became a self-fulfilling prophecy, Boughner said. Table players felt ignored.
"They (the casinos) go for the slot-machine players 100 percent," Bergen County restaurant owner Joseph Antone said while playing three-card poker at Borgata.
Likewise, Nancy and Steve Bliss, a Verona couple in their 50s, were turned off when they noticed casinos like Trump Marina replacing tables with slots. One dealer at Harrah's even refused to "rate" them - meaning they couldn't earn comps, they said.
"They didn't treat table players like they used to," Steve Bliss said.
Boughner thought he could reverse the trend by offering things table players have always been drawn to - lounges, bottled beer (instead of draft beer in plastic cups), headliner entertainment and the "Borgata babe" cocktail waitress.
Boughner also insisted on a higher ratio of tables to slot machines than the other casinos.
The new table player is different from the old one. Twenty years ago, when table revenue outpaced slot revenue in Atlantic City, casinos fought for a handful of high rollers who wagered up to $150,000 a hand. That came at a price, however: The house often lost. Or, in trying to draw the "whales," they doled out huge credit lines to gamblers who didn't make good on their debts.
The volatility "was really the result of management losing control over how the games were run," said Caesars President Paul Henderson. Since then, casinos have gotten better at managing that, he added.
Now, the vast majority of table players coming to Atlantic City bet far less per hand - anywhere from $25 to $10,000. But there are many more of them, Henderson said.
With Borgata's success in the table game arena, other A.C. casinos, hungry for younger gamblers, are looking to get a piece of the action. Caesars, one of the few casinos that continued to cater to table players when others didn't, is adding a lounge in the middle of its table area to appeal to the younger crowd.
And Harrah's and Showboat, which have all but ignored table players, are getting back into that side of the business. Harrah's is even going to host a qualifying tournament for the World Series of Poker.
"These (table players) are people who have $5,000 to $10,000 to spend in your place on a weekend," said Dave Jonas, senior vice president of Atlantic City operations for Harrah's and Showboat.
"I don't want anyone to think we're abandoning our core customer," he said. "But when you see a trend emerge, you have to make sure you're not left behind.link
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - For the past 20 years, the typical Atlantic City gambler has been a woman, about 55 years old, who drove to the resort a few times a month. There she sat for hours, by herself, putting quarter after quarter into the slots.
Pete Borstelmann is a different kind of gambler. He's young (22 years old) and has little interest in the 42,016 slot machines Atlantic City has to offer.
Borstelmann plays roulette. On a recent night, he was at Borgata with his girlfriend, 21-year-old Valerie Geraci, and they were milking their $200 bankroll for all it was worth.
Borstelmann represents a new breed of gambler in Atlantic City. Because of young people like him, table games, which went out of style with the leisure suit, are suddenly back in vogue.
"There's just more excitement at the tables," Borstelmann said.
Just a few years ago, casinos had all but written off table games. They were for old men. They were expensive to operate. And they weren't for a generation raised on video games.
Every year, a greater percentage of the casinos' win came from slot machines.
But with the rising popularity of poker and television shows like "Las Vegas," table games are making a comeback.
True, they might never again be the driver of a casino's profit: Today, roughly 75 percent of Atlantic City's casino revenues come from the slots. But they are enjoying a resurgence, thanks to the 20-somethings who seek the camaraderie and cachet that bellying up to the tables has to offer.
"It's in - it's retro," said Greg Reece, a 41-year-old Washington, D.C., marketing executive who was playing blackjack at Borgata on a recent Friday. "I suppose the kids want to be like me. I can't imagine why."
In Atlantic City, analysts attribute the change largely to Borgata, the $1 billion casino that opened in July. Since August, the amount the city's 12 casinos have won from the tables has increased at a higher rate than the slot win.
Michael Pollock, publisher of the Gaming Industry Observer, predicts table games will become more important to Atlantic City as nearby states begin to legalize slots at their racetracks.
"Borgata has shown that tables can still be a growth area, that the prevailing wisdom wasn't particularly valid any longer," Pollock said.
Borgata's chief executive, Bob Boughner, said he realized casinos were overlooking an untapped market when he came to A.C. in the late 1990s. He found Atlantic City's rush to go after the slot customer accelerated after casinos opened in Connecticut in the mid-1990s, offering "a far more compelling product" for table players, he said.
In Atlantic City, the casinos sought to maximize their profits by dismantling pits and lounges to make way for more slots, which are cheaper to operate. Thus the further decline in table play became a self-fulfilling prophecy, Boughner said. Table players felt ignored.
"They (the casinos) go for the slot-machine players 100 percent," Bergen County restaurant owner Joseph Antone said while playing three-card poker at Borgata.
Likewise, Nancy and Steve Bliss, a Verona couple in their 50s, were turned off when they noticed casinos like Trump Marina replacing tables with slots. One dealer at Harrah's even refused to "rate" them - meaning they couldn't earn comps, they said.
"They didn't treat table players like they used to," Steve Bliss said.
Boughner thought he could reverse the trend by offering things table players have always been drawn to - lounges, bottled beer (instead of draft beer in plastic cups), headliner entertainment and the "Borgata babe" cocktail waitress.
Boughner also insisted on a higher ratio of tables to slot machines than the other casinos.
The new table player is different from the old one. Twenty years ago, when table revenue outpaced slot revenue in Atlantic City, casinos fought for a handful of high rollers who wagered up to $150,000 a hand. That came at a price, however: The house often lost. Or, in trying to draw the "whales," they doled out huge credit lines to gamblers who didn't make good on their debts.
The volatility "was really the result of management losing control over how the games were run," said Caesars President Paul Henderson. Since then, casinos have gotten better at managing that, he added.
Now, the vast majority of table players coming to Atlantic City bet far less per hand - anywhere from $25 to $10,000. But there are many more of them, Henderson said.
With Borgata's success in the table game arena, other A.C. casinos, hungry for younger gamblers, are looking to get a piece of the action. Caesars, one of the few casinos that continued to cater to table players when others didn't, is adding a lounge in the middle of its table area to appeal to the younger crowd.
And Harrah's and Showboat, which have all but ignored table players, are getting back into that side of the business. Harrah's is even going to host a qualifying tournament for the World Series of Poker.
"These (table players) are people who have $5,000 to $10,000 to spend in your place on a weekend," said Dave Jonas, senior vice president of Atlantic City operations for Harrah's and Showboat.
"I don't want anyone to think we're abandoning our core customer," he said. "But when you see a trend emerge, you have to make sure you're not left behind.link
