Atlantic Club Closing

[DaBurglar]

Caesars and Tropicana purchased it in order to SHUT IT DOWN and thus, in theory, reduce the competition.    Tropicana purchased all the brand new games that the AC club had bought and put on their floor, a move which now shows the FOLLY of the management team that drove them into oblivion......they replaced virtually the entire SLOT inventory with brand new state of the art games, but did NOT do what was needed to ensure that ADDITIONAL players would show up to play all these new games.    The truth was their existing customer base was happy with the games they had, and yet that existing customer bas was not large enough to ensure their survival (obviously).....to think that by simpy replacing almost all their slots they would increase customer visits is absurd.....I heard RUMORS (mind you, I have no proof, just the ruminations of admittedly pissed off former employees) that the management team went and bought all those new machines from their slot vendor using money the casino couldnt afford to blow on such things, and in return got a nice kickback.....I know that such arrangements are common in many industries, so I cannot say I am surprised if such things are true, but still its galling.  Tropicana has 10 days starting TODAY, 01/14/14, to move all the machines out of AC club into their storage facility for inspection and eventual installation into the Trop's casino floor before they will be shipped into bankruptcy auction limbo.....The Trop also purchased the CUSTOMER info and data, so if you are a player of AC club's games the past year, expect some type of flyer in the mail soon from The Tropicana AC. Caesars got all the Beds, Linen, kitchen equipment and supplies, office machines and computers and stuff like that. The building I have no idea what is to become of it.....I suspect it will just sit and rot for a long time and eventually, maybe 18 months from now, there will be a AC Press Story on how the homeless and all the bird populations of AC have turned the building into their new shangri-la, much like they did with the half built Revel back in 2010 before the construction was resumed on it.....

[BillyJoe]

Atlantic City is overbuilt, IMO, for the current market, given the competition that they now face from other states. Closing several casinos, while painful to many, may be the best thing for the survival of the area.

[DaBurglar]

Atlantic City is overbuilt, IMO, for the current market, given the competition that they now face from other states. Closing several casinos, while painful to many, may be the best thing for the survival of the area.
  this is the easiest, least mentally taxing solution for AC, but does not guarantee that once they shut down enough casinos to meet the equilibrium of their current customer base, that they will not CONTINUE to hemmorhage customers and revenue, so that once down to 8 casinos they find they dont have enough business for them so they cut it to 7, and then find they lost some more people so they cut it to 6, etc etc etc  YOU CANNOT CUT YOUR WAY out of an economic or business problem, it MUST be followed by growth strategy and measures. AC needs to LOOSEN LOOSEN LOOSEN their machines and then ADVERTISE ADVERTISE ADVERTISE the fact that they have done so.   Room rates need to be slashed, even on the weekends, to make it easy and worthwhile for people to make the trip, for whatver reason (to gamble, sunbathe, stroll the boardwalk, EAT, you name it...)   Once they have attracted the GAMBLERS back, they need to keep them interested with regular periodic promotions that give them REAL value for their gambling dollars.... This is the new reality, the new paradigm, and they must accept it.....there are still too many idiots left over from the salad days when AC was the only game in town and people showed up no matter how bad or poor the service was or the games were.   No longer the case...... It really is not hard nor a mystery......ALL businesses/industries change and evolve, and its simple, you either adapt or die, either roll with it or get rolled over.

[olds442jetaway]

I am seeing a reminder in Ct. of what is happening to A/C. Mohegan Sun's 4th quarter profis fell by roughly 2/3rds compared to 2012. This reminds me of so many restaurants I have seen fail over the years. When times get tough, they immediately raise prices, cut protions and quality, etc. The similarity in casinos would be cutting paytables, promotions, other comps and specials etc. in either case, why would anyone want to go there? Doing away with their marketing department didn't help either as well as dumping extra duties on staff that in some cases is over worked already. Poor employee morale will rub off on the patrons too. You can see it in their faces even if they don't say anything. I like your quote. Rolling with it reminds me of craps. If you don't it is 7 out!!!

[Tedlark]

  I saw some pictures today of workers moving gambling machines out of the Atlantic City Club. How do we know that these workers are not changing the chips in the machines or otherwise tampering with them? Inquiring minds want to know, maybe this calls for a visit to the Gaming Commission office on tennessee Ave? Or is it Tennessee St? Tennessee Pl? Tennessee Blvd?Tennessee Pkwy? Tennessee Rd?

[DaBurglar]

The office is located on the corner of Tenn. Avenue and the boardwalk....the boardwalk entrance is nestled between a antique shoppe and an empty storefront, and the office hours on the door say Monday thru Friday 9 to 5pm but they are currently incorrect, as the office is frequently closed due to staffing levels, but Thursdays are usually a day when its open.   Enter thru the side entrance on Tennessee avenue itself, avoid the flight of stairs to your left and walk around them to the glass window, and then ring the bell if no one sees you.  Tony Rodio, CEO of the Tropicana-AC said in the AC press that they would be installing the games from AC club over the next 3 to 4 months....but my biggest concern is what the Tropicana will give to ME as a former AC club player (at the mid-level, Elite.....the AC club had 3 player levels:  Basic, Elite and Ultra)    My play for 2013 barely made it to Elite, as I stopped playing VP on a large basis at AC club the end of 2012, and a huge part of my abysmal results in AC from 2009 thru 2012 were at AC club.....I never won a stinking thing there.  So i doubt we need to worry about people taking chips out of the games.....where I sit that would be a good thing.  What I will miss most about AC club, aside from its cozy size, will be the rooms.....they had the best hot tubs in any NON-suite room in AC.   awesome for a persons achy bones and getting the stench of tobacco off of you after 6 hours in a casino.

[Tedlark]

  Maybe CET will sell you one of those hot tubs?

[BillyJoe]

 
Tony Rodio, CEO of the Tropicana-AC said in the AC press that they would be installing the games from AC club over the next 3 to 4 months....but my biggest concern is what the Tropicana will give to ME as a former AC club player (at the mid-level, Elite.....the AC club had 3 player levels:  Basic, Elite and Ultra)    
My guess... NOTHING. The Trop bought the machines, not the players or the casino business.

[Tedlark]

[QUOTE=DaBurglar] 
Tony Rodio, CEO of the Tropicana-AC said in the AC press that they would be installing the games from AC club over the next 3 to 4 months....but my biggest concern is what the Tropicana will give to ME as a former AC club player (at the mid-level, Elite.....the AC club had 3 player levels:  Basic, Elite and Ultra)    
My guess... NOTHING. The Trop bought the machines, not the players or the casino business. [/QUOTE]


  Maybe one of those wonderful hot tubs?

[DaBurglar]

[QUOTE=DaBurglar] 
Tony Rodio, CEO of the Tropicana-AC said in the AC press that they would be installing the games from AC club over the next 3 to 4 months....but my biggest concern is what the Tropicana will give to ME as a former AC club player (at the mid-level, Elite.....the AC club had 3 player levels:  Basic, Elite and Ultra)    
My guess... NOTHING. The Trop bought the machines, not the players or the casino business. [/QUOTE]
  NO, they did purchase all the customer info and stats too, I remember that was mentioned in the articles the week prior to shutting down, and I was talking with another player and his wife on the friday before lights out about whether or not we would be getting anything from the TROP to try and lure us there for business.  Tony Rodio specifcially said it will allow the Trop to target the AC CLUBs besy customers with offers tailored to their specific game and play preferences...... AC had (and still has) a lot of signs and billboards from several casinos asking AC CLUB patrons to stop by and they will sign you up and give you something.....no specifics but it is what you'd expect. This info normally would be extremely valuable from a marketing perspective, but this is AC, so perhaps, in the end, billyjoe might be right, I wont get squat