When it comes to gambling in America, Las Vegas is the undisputed capital. It’s got great casinos, fantastic restaurants, cool nightclubs, and stage shows that are good enough to pull you away from the tables.
But Sin City, locked into the desert, lacks a beach, an ocean, and views of the rollicking waves. For those things, gamblers visit Atlantic City, a place that is the setting for both the game of Monopoly and the crime-centered HBO series Boardwalk Empire.
Perfect Locale
As the name implies, Atlantic City is set on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. A stretch of casinos runs along the famed Boardwalk, and they offer easy access to everything that a shore town provides.
In my opinion, the best spot with beach proximity is Ocean Casino Resort. Set down at a far end of the Boardwalk, its rooms feature floor to ceiling windows with perfect views of the Atlantic.
There is a waterfront day club, in the form of HQ2 Beachclub, and a nighttime dance spot predictably called HQ2 Nightclub. They both draw Vegas-worthy DJs.
The casino itself has loads of felt-topped tables – games, of course, include blackjack, baccarat, roulette, and every other gambit on which you can risk a pile of chips. And players there have enjoyed some major windfalls.
This past May, a man visiting from Virginia hit a $670,915 jackpot via a $7 bet on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine. It was part of a seventh birthday promotion put on by Ocean, in which $7 million in prize money was being given away. This lucky player had some good fortune in how to win at slots.
The sportsbook is one of the best in town. Recently launched and run by Michael Rubin’s Fanatics, it’s a great place for catching the coming season’s NFL matchups.
The place ranks among my favorites spots for watching games and (hopefully) winning money. Giant hi-def monitors cover the walls, enthusiastic crowds of gamblers pile in (games are always more fun to watch when surrounded by fellow sports lovers), and, unlike at some other sportsbooks in AC, there is no fee to enter. That said, for those who want to splurge, there is bottle service at private tables on an upper level.
While casinos here are loaded with restaurants, there are plenty of places in which to dine on the outside. Local personality Mike “AC Mike” Lopez offers a delicious sampling of local eateries via his Taste of Atlantic City food tours.
Gambling All Around Town
From one end of the Boardwalk to the other, and across the bay, in the Marina District, there are nine Atlantic City casinos in total. They accommodate all sorts of bankrolls and considerations.
For those who feel faithful to Caesars Entertainment – and want to take advantage of comps that they might have generated – there are three strong options: Caesars Atlantic City, Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City, and Tropicana Atlantic City.
Caesars, right in the middle of the Boardwalk, provides the classic, big-time gambling experience. Harrah’s is in the Marine District and has more of a resort vibe.
The Tropicana might be a notch down from Caesars in terms of dining and amenities (Caesars is the home of The Hook, a bawdy variety show that provides a great respite from the gaming tables), but it is the largest resort on the Boardwalk and has its own shopping center called the Quarter.
For those seeking an experience that comes close to Vegas at its best, the Borgata is the place to go. Overall, it’s my choice spot when visiting AC. The rooms are excellent (particularly in the Water Club), the gaming is top notch, an energetic vibe permeates the casino, and the place houses the best poker room around.
If you want a good steak, you can hit the Old Homestead, an Atlantic City outpost of the venerable Manhattan eatery. If baccarat is your thing, Noodles provides classic Chinese delicacies and is accessible through the casino’s new baccarat room. Plus, Borgata has an affiliation with MGM Resorts.
Other gambling dens in which to put your money to work: Bally’s Atlantic City, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, Golden Nugget, and Resorts Casino Hotel.
Gambling Comes to a Beach Town
Though it seems like casinos have been in Atlantic City forever, they first arrived in 1978. That made Atlantic City the second place in America, after the state of Nevada, where casino gambling is legal. The plan was for gambling to revitalize Atlantic City, which had been on a brutal downswing.
The first joint to open in AC was Resorts International. The place was so popular, right out of the gate, that lines of people patiently waited to get in. Yes, there was that much pent-up demand for gambling in New Jersey.
Within a year, there were nearly 50 casino proposals circulating. By 1981, Caesars and Bally’s both began shuffling up in Atlantic City,
Donald Trump and Steve Wynn got into the act early on. Wynn opened an offshoot of his Las Vegas Golden Nugget in 1981and sold it six years later. Trump opened three spots – Trump Plaza, Trump Marina and the Taj Mahal. Marina has been rebranded as the Golden Nugget (not with a Wynn affiliation), the old Taj is the site of the Hard Rock, and the Plaza was imploded in 2021.
Did gambling help AC? There are arguments on both sides of that question, but the gamblers who flock there are not complaining.
Scoring Big in Atlantic City
Casino bosses are never crazy about advantage players getting the better of them, and the operators in Atlantic City are no exception. Nevertheless, whether they like it or not, AC is a gambling destination where some notable APs have gone home with pockets jingling.
John Chang, a key member of the famous MIT blackjack team, told me about a memorable pair of hands played in AC where he had max bets up and was dealt 19 and 11. Using advanced blackjack strategy and card counting Chang knew that the next two cards would be 2 and 10. So he doubled down with both the 19 and the 11. He scored big and immediately told his playing partner, “Let’s get out of here.”
Though he is best known for his success as a sports bettor, Billy Walters recounts in his book The Gambler that he found a biased roulette wheel in Wynn’s Golden Nugget. Playing the roulette wheel strategically, as explained in the book, Walters wound up with a $3.8 million win.
And then there is Don Johnson’s rampage through AC. He crushed games at Borgata, Caesars, Trump Plaza, and Tropicana. Like all APs, Johnson was trying to keep a low profile about his successes. But one of his wins made headlines – “Don Johnson won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino,” trumpeted The Atlantic magazine – and put him on a path to become the most famous gambler of recent years.
The next big public winner will doubtlessly emerge soon, and the thought of being that person is enough to inspire a trip to America’s ocean-front gambling destination.
