Casino Games offered in Pennsylvania – the End for Atlantic City?

This week marked a joyous occasion for Pennsylvania gamblers since they were allowed to legally play casino table games for the first time in history. Roulette, blackjack, craps, three card poker, pai gow poker, and Texas Hold’em were just a few of the games that people played in Pennsylvania casinos.

Before, Pennsylvania casino visitors could only play slot machines, which really limited their choices. However, the new selection of games means that the seven Pennsylvania casinos can offer everything that the major casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City can offer. Unfortunately for the latter, this spells bad news.

Atlantic City has already been suffering as we’ve reported before with the Trump Casinos. In fact, all three of the Trump Casinos recently breathed a collective sigh of relief after the company emerged from a third Chapter 11 bankruptcy to organize and try again. Unfortunately, they’ll have an even steeper climb now that the neighboring state of Pennsylvania can offer a full array of casino gaming to its residents.

The American recession has already hurt gambling hubs like Las Vegas and Atlantic City with both hotel and gaming revenue falling as people have less free money to spend. And things only got worse a few years ago when the Keystone State legalized slot machines. So if things got worse after slots were legalized, imagine what will happen now that Pennsylvania can offer lots of other games.

Atlantic City used to be able to count on around 50% of its visitors coming from Pennsylvania every week as people from Philadelphia and other cities would make the 1-2 hour trip to Atlantic City. Now it seems like most people will stick to the Pennsylvania casinos instead of traveling to the ocean. The PA gaming also figures to cut down on New York City visitors to Atlantic City as well.