Tag: Atlantic City

Sin City or Atlantic City?

When deciding where to play blackjack online it is relatively easy to find a site that you like.

I usually go to Online Casino Suite and find the best online casinos. They review all of them and let me know each casino’s payout  percentage as well as the hit frequency. There are a lot of options, but the good thing is you can virtually leap from casino to casino.

But what about when you want to play blackjack at a physical casino? Do you find a local casino or venture to one for the well-known gambling destinations? I was reading an article today at Fox News about how New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been making a push to get players to come to the east coast rather than the west coast. He says that “You’d have to be stupid to go to a dessert in the middle of the summer.”

But would you? Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has to laugh at this, although she appreciates Christie’s efforts to draw tourism to Atlantic City.

The fact of the matter is Las Vegas will always beat Atlantic City in revenue, in 2010 Vegas nearly doubled AC’s earnings, and so Goodman has nothing to worry about.

So which is it going to be: Sin City or Atlantic City?

It all can be summed up with one quote from an active gambler who has visited both destinations many times: “If you want to experience Jersey, go to Atlantic City. But if you want to experience the world, come to Vegas.”

AC Tropicana Pays Out Another $5 Million

I am sure you all recall last month when the Tropicana in Atlantic City had to pay out $5.8 million to Don Johnson. It was only one of a handful of huge blackjack wins he had that amounted to $15 million winning streak around the Atlantic City casinos.

Now another blackjack player has made it big at the Tropicana. I do not have the winner’s name as it is not the Tropicana’s policy to name who their big winners are; it is their way of protecting the winner’s privacy. However, if the winner reveals their own identity, well that is their own prerogative, like how Don Johnson revealed himself to be the winner of the $5.8 million from playing blackjack back in May.

The latest winner at the Tropicana blackjack tables won $5.3 million. Not quite a Don Johnson, but pretty close. That makes for $11 million in just around a month that the Tropicana has had to pay out to blackjack players as a result of their high stakes blackjack tables. And despite the need to hang on to and make money, the Tropicana does not look to stop offering high stakes blackjack:

“That is just how it goes sometimes; if you get more, you can win more. We have a strategy of offering the most aggressive and highest table games limits in the Atlantic City market, and we are not going to change that. If someone wants to take the shot, we will take the action,” said the Tropicana’s President and CEO, Tony Rodio.

$5.8 Million Won in Atlantic City Blackjack

There was one very lucky blackjack player last month at the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City. In a high stakes blackjack game, the player (who has not been named to protect him or her) won $5.8 million.

It is actually an unfortunately ironic story. Not unfortunate or ironic for the player though. He or she is probably quite happy right about now with their $5.8 million. But the Tropicana is not excessively happy. Do not get me wrong, the publicity that they had a nearly $6 million winner is going to do them some good. But they just had to pay out close to $6 million to one player.

Atlantic City has been suffering in the down turned economy. There has been a drop in visitors which further impacts the smaller and smaller turnouts. Profits are down and there is no end yet in sight for a solution. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has passed a few bills to help revitalize Atlantic City, but their impact has not yet been felt. As a result, the casinos are all trying different ways of drumming up business. The Tropicana’s method was to offer high stakes blackjack games. There was the potential to win a good chunk of money from players, and players would be lured in by the idea that they could win big.

But the Tropicana’s plan has backfired. Their high stakes gamble resulted in them having to pay out $5.8 million. One casino official summed it up as so: “We had the single-largest winner in our history. If it had not been for bad luck at the tables, we would have had a good month.” And when he says ‘bad luck’ he means bad luck for the Tropicana.

It just further proves that it is possible to make a decent turn of money playing blackjack.

Blackjack Origins

Every now and then it is good to take a step back and appreciate where something came from. Like a birthday—you celebrate where you came from once a year.

This is not a birthday post for blackjack, but more of an appreciation. Kind of like when you go to a museum or paid attention in history class to a lesson that you liked. Not everyone knows where blackjack game from, what its history is. Studying a casino game is one thing, but true appreciation comes from knowing the game. And that includes its history. So today we are going to take a look at the history of blackjack.

I know that Captain Jack Sparrow liked to blame things on the French. But in this case blaming the French for blackjack is a nice thing indeed.

While blackjack has a bit of a murky past—seems no one really kept track of things like we do today—but the most agree that blackjack originated in France from a couple of other card games: Chemin de Fer and French Ferme.

Wherever and however it actually came about, we do know that I was showing up in French casinos in the 1700s. At least that is when it was first documented as being somewhere. In the French casinos it was then called Vingt et Un, which is French for 21.

At some point 21 crossed the Atlantic and made it to the United States in the 1800s as that is when it was first document as being played here. In the western U.S. gambling—and blackjack—was legal between the 1850s and 1910.

In 1910 casino games and gambling were declared felonies. But in 1931 Nevada had a change of heart and made gambling and casino games legal again. And that is when blackjack began to reign as one of the most popular casino games.

The 1980s brought blackjack to Atlantic City. And it has continued to spread from there. Twenty states now have legalized gambling with more doing so as they are drawn to the money that could be made from taxes to fill in their budget holes. In addition there are seventy Native American casinos spread out around the United States as well.

Blackjack has come a long way since it first showed up in French casinos in the 1700s.

More Blackjack for Pennsylvania

On Thursday of last week three brick and mortar casinos in western Pennsylvania opened the blackjack tables, drawing patrons away from the long haul drive to Atlantic City to enjoy some blackjack.

Unfortunately for Atlantic City the run of Pennsylvania casinos is not at an end yet. This past Tuesday, July 13th, saw the opening of blackjack tables in three eastern Pennsylvania casinos.

Blackjack players all over Pennsylvania are very excited with the addition of their favorite casino game in six casinos. This follows months of back and forth political arguments earlier this year about whether or not the State would allow table games like blackjack, roulette and craps to be added to their game offerings. But the demand was there and the income to the State in gaming taxes was needed. Everyone wins. Well, except for Atlantic City.

For decades Atlantic City was the mecca of East Coast gambling in the United States. But with the down turn in the economy and a lack of funds trickling down the government hill, states began looking at other ways to bring in money.

Pennsylvania is not the only state to look to gambling. Florida recently settled a long standing dispute with the Seminole tribe about blackjack there. Florida will be making $1.5 billion over the next five years from their deal with the Seminoles.

But with the addition of blackjack to the casino games at the Rivers, Meadows and Presque Isle Downs casinos in western Pennsylvania and the Mohegan Sun, Mount Airy and Hollywood casinos in eastern Pennsylvania could spell even more trouble for Atlantic City.

Not only will the time-honored East Coast gambling destination be competing with these six improved casinos next door, they might also be competing against online gambling. New Jersey is looking at legalizing online gambling for New Jersey residents that would make the competition even greater for Atlantic City.

While Pennsylvania blackjack players are quite happy with the new table games in six of their casinos, we shall have to see how Atlantic City fares over the next few years. Will it be able to keep itself afloat or will it sink in the ocean that is the gambling industry.