New York casinos not expected to lure many Atlantic City gamblers

A new Fairleigh Dickinson PublicMind Poll finds that New Jersey residents plan to keep going to Atlantic City casinos — even when four casinos open in New York.

It might be a few years before those new casinos in New York are ready to open, said Dan Cassino, Fairleigh Dickinson political science professor.

And only 12 percent of New Jersey residents intend to go there instead of Atlantic City, he said.

“The good news for Atlantic City is that it doesn’t look like Atlantic City casinos are facing wholesale defection from people in New Jersey,” he said. “The bad news is, the loss of even 12 percent of the customers, on top of what they’ve already lost, could be devastating.”

More competition will make it difficult to generate the revenue to support the overhead that’s needed to keep the Atlantic City casinos running, he said. They’re also facing competition from casinos in Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The Atlantic Club closed in January, and the 11 remaining casinos in the city have been struggling with several years of revenue declines.