A December push fizzled when some lawmakers pivoted away from a full ban in favor of a compromise proposal favored by the casino industry that would build enclosed smoking rooms in which employees would volunteer to work. That approach is vehemently opposed by many casino workers who say nothing less than a full ban can protect their health and give them the same workplace protections that other workers in New Jersey are guaranteed.
Smoking is currently allowed on 25% of the casino floor, but those areas are spread out widely over the entire gambling area, with the effect that secondhand smoke is present and detectable even in nonsmoking sections.
“I’m hopeful that we will be in a smoke-free environment in the near future,” said Nicole Vitola, a Borgata dealer and one of the leaders of the push to ban smoking in the casinos. “It would have been a nice present this year.”
Other questions abound for Atlantic City in 2024: Can the casinos get back to and surpass the level of business they were doing before the COVID-19 pandemic, not just collectively but at each individual property?
In terms of money won from in-person gamblers — the casinos’ key business metric — only three casinos won more through the first 11 months of this year than they did over the same period in 2019, before the pandemic. They are the Borgata, Hard Rock and Ocean. Because money from internet gambling and sports betting must be shared with partners including tech platforms and is not solely for the casinos to keep, they view money won from gamblers on their own premises as their key business.
Will more gamblers risk their money online rather than traveling to Atlantic City to do it? Internet gambling brought in nearly $1.75 billion through the first 11 months of this year, and set a new monthly record in November.
Will the addition of more security cameras make the city safer?
And will a much-doubted project to narrow Atlantic Avenue — the main road through the city’s downtown — from two lanes in each direction to one, succeed in cutting down pedestrian accidents without tying the city into gridlocked knots on busy summer weekends or major concert nights? Five casinos and a hospital are challenging the plan in court; a hearing is set for Jan. 26.
Atlantic City is due for a government-funded beach replenishment project in 2024 to widen beaches that have become eroded over the years. Sand loss got so bad in the north end of the city that the Ocean casino paid $700,000 to have sand trucked in to what little remained of the beach in front of its casino in May.
Individual casinos plan to reinvest millions into their properties in the new year.
Ocean will renovate 506 hotel rooms at a cost of $25 million before summer arrives. Caesars will open its Nobu Hotel project with 85 rooms and suites in one of the final phases of parent company Caesars Entertainment’s $420 million investment into its three Atlantic City properties.
The Golden Nugget plans to complete the first phase of a $6 million renovation of 100 rooms and suites.
And 2024 could be the year significant decisions are made on an ambitious proposal to redevelop the former Bader Field airport property into a $2.7 billion automobile-themed housing, entertainment and recreation project.