Casino

ATLANTIC CITY - Revel's new Pearl Lounge takes pains to show it is not just any slots parlor. With its canopy entrance, strung-pearl ceiling design, custom-print glass doors, and red oak floors, exclusivity is what it's all about. The 3,000-square-foot space just off the main gaming floor is intended as a complement to the casino's Ultra Lounge, a private space for high-end table players. "We needed this," George Mancuso, vice president of slot operations at Revel, said during a media tour Thursday on the eve of Pearl Lounge's opening.

Three top executives of developer Donald Trump's Atlantic City casino empire were killed yesterday when their helicopter lost its main rotor and crashed on the wooded median strip of the Garden State Parkway about two miles north of the Barnegat toll plaza. The helicopter's pilot and co-pilot also were killed in the crash, which occurred shortly before 2 p.m. about 30 miles north of Atlantic City. Witnesses said they heard a loud bang and saw the sleek, Italian-made helicopter's 36-foot main rotor stop spinning and then "pop" off. The craft, flying at 2,800 feet and probably traveling about 150 m.p.h.

Gary DiBartolomeo, the former president of Caesars Atlantic City who was stripped of his casino license four years ago because he lied about his gambling addiction, got his license reinstated and a second chance yesterday. "Thank you very much," said a barely audible DiBartolomeo, after the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, which regulates gambling in Atlantic City, voted, 5-0, in favor of reissuing him a license. With that, DiBartolomeo got up and quickly left the room.

The Jovers have 12 minutes in Merv Griffin's Resorts' "Starstruck" show. This doesn't sound like much, especially on those nights, about once a month, when Griffin himself grabs a microphone and makes a surprise appearance. When Griffin appears, the Jovers have a tag line, one of many that have been tried, proved and seasoned from nearly 30 years in front of audiences. Fe (pronounced Fay) Jover halts her nonstop gush of bubbly, British- accented giggles, and says quite seriously, "Merv has asked us to make a special announcement.

You're sitting on the edge of a swimming pool so blue, you imagine you're in the Caribbean. The vivid flowers and aquatic plantings surrounding this pool are so spectacular, they rival those found near Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Now, you close your eyes and savor a meal so satisfying you'd swear you were in Paris. All this after a pedicure so perfect, a facial so cleansing and a massage so soothing, you think maybe you've just died and gone to . . . Atlantic City?

I TOTALLY AGREE with you about not having the casino built in the Gallery and allowing it to be built on the waterfront. The plans that were shown in the paper for the waterfront casino were beautiful. I can't even imagine putting it in the Gallery. I am wondering if the main reason to put it there is people will have to pay a high price for parking? Renee Towns, Philadelphia

If June revenue numbers released Tuesday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement are a barometer of how well a casino will perform in the slower winter months in Atlantic City, then the new Revel is in trouble. June is a peak month at the Jersey Shore resort, and the mega casino generated $14.9 million on total gambling revenue, ranking it 8th among the city's dozen gambling halls for the third consecutive month since it debuted April 2. By comparison, market leader Borgata pulled in $53.3 million last month, about three and a half times more than Revel.

ATLANTIC CITY - Last year's tan had long faded away, and the waves were brisk with a pre-season chill. But finally, after the cool intervening months since last summer, the Pier Shops at Caesars is heating up. On its third-floor restaurant concourse, you can sit back in a wooden chaise-longue, grab a cocktail, and actually put your toes in the sand of the faux-beach that lines the windowed hall. Watching the waves crack below the Pier onto the beach from the comfort of this seaside mall was about the closest I've gotten to imagining a year-round summer.

Philadelphia was dealt a bad hand when the Foxwoods casino was proposed for the city's Delaware River waterfront. But with the future of the project in doubt, local leaders have a rare chance to reshape it. Now that Foxwoods' casino license could be revoked and given to another group, city and state officials must acknowledge that plunking down a casino wherever a developer wants it is not wise. We've also learned that casinos designed without comprehensive traffic and land-use planning don't work very well.

When he reteamed with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci to make Casino in 1995, Martin Scorsese found himself in competition with his past achievements. His incomparably sardonic assessment of the mob in 1990's GoodFellas was rightly regarded as one of his best films. If he didn't match that movie in Casino, Scorsese gave us a dazzling look at the point where money and greed meet sex and need in the Las Vegas of the '70s. De Niro's Sam Rothstein demonstrates such a flair for numbers while running a sports book that the mob chooses him to take control of its operation in Las Vegas.

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. - It built an early reputation as a boardwalk thrill ride, but will be remembered as a symbol: the roller coaster that dropped into the Atlantic Ocean. On Tuesday, as people watched from the decks of a pizza joint and a shuttered tattoo parlor, a soaring crane on a barge began unceremoniously taking apart the mangled Jet Star, still partially submerged where it has sat since Hurricane Sandy. And in what seemed like no time at all, not long after Prince Harry left, the image that has defined the impact of Sandy at the Jersey Shore began to disappear, twisted track by twisted track, like a beach eroding before your eyes.

Is it just me, or does it feel a little, I don't know, gross that, while we're awash in headlines about a "Doomsday Budget" for our public schools, a cadre of well-coiffed businessmen are sharing grandiose plans for yet another Philadelphia casino? How'd we get here? Seems as if, over the last decade, gaming has become a type of crack cocaine for a whole generation of politicians: With their budgets squeezed by economic downturn and an electorate all too willing to vote out of office anyone who considers a tax hike, our so-called leaders - rather than make the hard choices and right-size their governments - have opted for the quick-fix high of casinos, long-term consequences be damned.

Gambling foes filled the audience at Wednesday's hearing before the state Gaming Control Board, silently standing to strongly protest the building of another casino in Philadelphia. About 75 people, mostly from Chinatown, held anti-casino signs during back-to-back testimony from gaming opponents at the end of the fourth and last day of public input on a second license. The protesters represented a coalition of community groups called No Casino in Our City. While most of the earlier speakers were endorsing one project or another, the 11 people to testify at the end of the hearing denounced gambling as bad public policy that was promoting addiction.

ATLANTIC CITY - Revel's new Pearl Lounge takes pains to show it is not just any slots parlor. With its canopy entrance, strung-pearl ceiling design, custom-print glass doors, and red oak floors, exclusivity is what it's all about. The 3,000-square-foot space just off the main gaming floor is intended as a complement to the casino's Ultra Lounge, a private space for high-end table players. "We needed this," George Mancuso, vice president of slot operations at Revel, said during a media tour Thursday on the eve of Pearl Lounge's opening.

ATLANTIC CITY - The dozen casinos here experienced a 12.1 percent drop in casino revenue in April, compared to a year earlier - continuing a pattern of double digit declines. The resort's gaming revenue was down 13.2 percent in January; 12.5 percent in February; and 12.8 percent in March. Total casino revenue was $228.5 million last month, compared to $259.9 million in April 2012. Ten of the 12 gambling halls reported year-over-year declines, but Revel - which had its first anniversary on April 2 - reported the largest drop at 40.1 percent.

Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment Inc., owner of Parx in Bensalem, announced Friday that it was applying for a casino license in Maryland. The company is also partnered with Baltimore-based Cordish Cos. to build Live! Hotel and Casino, one of six proposals currently competing for Philadelphia's second gaming license. Maryland Casino L.L.C. - a subsidiary of Greenwood Gaming - submitted an application with the State of Maryland Video Lottery Facility Location Commission to develop an $800 million hotel, gaming and entertainment venue in Prince George's County, Md., to be branded as Parx Casino Hotel & Spa. - Suzette Parmley

FIGHTING FOR a casino in the city is a team sport. Supporters of the six groups seeking to win the city's second casino license gave an earful to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board yesterday at a public hearing at Lincoln Financial Field. A letter from City Council President Darrell Clarke praised developer Bart Blatstein. James White, former city managing director, endorsed PHL Local Gaming's Casino Revolution. Work ethic and track records were cited, community dedication was touted.

Traffic's constant vibration, especially after sports events, has left her home near the stadium complex and those of her neighbors "crumbling," Judy Cerrone says, tearing up their foundations. "We absolutely don't want a casino south of Oregon Avenue. We are prisoners of our homes," said Cerrone, president of Stadium Community Council, a civic group. She was among about 60 people who spoke Wednesday to the state Gaming Control Board about the possible effects of a second Philadelphia gambling hall.

New Jersey saw the largest declines in gross gaming and tax revenues among the 22 states in which commercial casinos operated in 2012. Philadelphia remained the No. 1 racetrack-gaming market in the country last year, with $835.3 million in gross gaming revenue generated, led by Parx in Bensalem for the third consecutive year. And increasingly, patrons between ages 21 and 35 are frequenting casinos - about 39 percent of those surveyed for the first time - visiting nongambling amenities such as nightclubs and restaurants.

You can excuse William Ryan Jr., a well-known former prosecutor from Delaware County, for not paying much attention to the competition in 2006 for the city's first two casino licenses. At the time, he was working in Harrisburg as second-in-command to then-Attorney General Tom Corbett, overseeing a staff of 730. Today, most of Ryan's time is focused on the future of gaming in Philadelphia and the entire state. In 2011, Corbett named his longtime associate to be chairman of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.