Right but it's not just coming to AC it's going to be in any state that wants it including online. NJ has a short advantage since it's been planning for this day, but for a long view operation like Apple its analysis seems to have shown that wouldn't be enough. Once state legislatures, likely in conjunction with the pro leagues, get up to speed AC and LV will not have any advantage in the sports book market. But LV has long hedged it's bets there and doesn't rely on gambling tourism nearly as much as it once did. Plus LV is an Int'l destination. AC has a long, long, long way to get to that point.
Agreed.
Bringing sports gambling to NJ (there's been talk all along of a northern NJ location as well as AC) is not going to save AC, any more than bringing casinos to AC saved that city long-term. Still, I shudder to think what AC would be like today without the casinos. The problem is not whether the casino "experiment" was successful (it was, for a while), but whether it could be a long-term fix.
AC can't get to LV's position. There's little there that's unique enough to make it a national or international destination. Air travel essentially killed AC as a major resort destination for the Northeast. Why go to AC by car or rail when Miami was just an hour farther away by air?
I remember when NJ voters approved casino gaming. The only competition at the time was LV. However, it didn't take other states long to jump on the casino bandwagon - NJ basically proved to other states that the voters will say Yes. NJ's projections of recovery for the city were based on being the Eastern US's only gambling destination. More states piled in, then Native Americans finally found a way to make money from the invaders, spurring more states to approve gaming....
The LV we see today, with its over-the-top architecture, was driven by a need to rise above the new competition, built on the Orlando, FL model. There's just one Orlando, and one Las Vegas. Everything else is second-class, no matter how grand the individual casino resorts may be. The problem is in locating more than a handful of casino resorts in any one place. It's likely to stay that way - the market is too saturated.
Back to Apple... There's actually a fair amount of money in the area. The trouble is that none of it lives in AC proper. People who own or rent homes on the mainland or in neighboring beach communities don't go to AC to shop (or much of anything else, other than dine and gamble), and much of that monied population is seasonal. People who visit from the Philadelphia area, NY City, and Northern NJ are already well-served by Apple Stores. It's just a tough location, and I wish the folks who worked there well.
