If you've tried to play poker there, you'll realize why this (probably) isn't poker news.

I was in AC last Weds, and I walked over to check out the afternoon tourney. After asking 3 people, I finally found the poker room. When I got there, I found a beautiful poker room, the manager, and a dealer. That was it.

That's because he's a jerkoff and interesting topics elude a jerkoff's mentality.

Atlantic City will never recover from convenience gambling. People choose to play close to where they live. The only thing NJ can do is to finally allow a casino in the meadowlands area, as well as racinos at the local racetracks. If not, property and income taxes in the state will continue to rise to obscene levels.

never been there, never plan to. I give them 24 months before they are out.

i don't understand why AC doesn't take advantage of there beaches. The beaches there are so ungodly disgusting and gross. They should clean up the beaches and the neighborhood.

I have to agree with those who said Revel’s biggest mistake was putting another casino in AC especially considering it was entering a very competitive, over-saturated market. Its original business plan concept was to target a “higher class” of customer seeking a special tourist experience. That’s why it adopted a no-smoking policy, not to have a restaurant with a buffet, etc., trying to look sort of artsy.

Seriously, how many people go to AC these days as a tourist destination?

It hasn’t helped that Revel has shown some amazingly bad operations management. The main phone number for customers wasn’t properly staffed by operators. You had to endure an average wait of at least 25 minutes before reaching a live person, or leave a message and wait for a call back. WTF?? I thought its advertising was unaggressive overall, the info on its website looked out of sync with what the place was doing. There are also issues such as lack of decent signage, and the out-of-the-way placement of the poker room, which seems to me like it was added as an afterthought. And lastly, remember the weekend a while back when some customers upon check-in found out their (comped) rooms got cancelled because they didn’t “give enough play”? Even though it was Revel’s prerogative, for the sake of your PR you just don’t do that.

Back to AC in general, I think that to revitalize itself it will to legalize sports betting or (and I’m only half-kidding here) prostitution, or something that its growing number of competitors can’t or won’t provide.

2nd times the charm. the original investors already went busto in like 09 after the market dropped. get bailed out by the state cause of the added tax revenue, flop just as fast. idk anyone who preferred it to borg

If you think AC looks like a war zone now, you should have seen it before the "beautification of AC" dollars were being spent!

The Revel project had all the bad luck possible from its inception, beginning with a fatal plane crash affecting its ownership. It was originally the concept of a consortium of local guys (5 I think) and their bad luck spiraled including the economy tanking midtsream of the big push on its early construction. They got to the point of no return and the debt just kept skyrocketing, and still does. Regardless of all the tax and other incentives they got, the decision makers just made it more of a money pit. It cant ever be sold because of the debt, so the article is right, that the owners of the paper were destined to be the owners of the property from the get go.

Fwiw, the non-smoking, politically correct but stupid, statute made a HUGE difference in AC, not only at Revel but everywhere. All of that transpired before PA and other states were even in the picture, and no matter what anyone says, attendence at every casino plummeted double digits fom that point on.

All they have to do is turn it back to a tourist destination clean up the neighborhood and beaches so the dad can take his family so that he can go play cards and mommy can go play slots. Casino in AC can be profitable just look at the Borgata. I think they survive just because they're separated from the boardwalk and safety isn't a issue when going there.

beyonce got hers tho

revel was kinda doomed from the start.every time i called to put my name down they'd say they didn't have a game going but could text me when some people would show up (and i'd play because they had some promotion this month) but i never once got a text back.it isn't that hard. the rooms are nice though. ya pretty much. i've been to AC a ton. i've walked down the boardwalk once, went to harrahs once during a WSOPC event cause that was the only time they ever had 2/5 running, and other than that never left the borgata (excluding when i got the night comped at revel).

like i've probably lived at the borg for 2 months, not venturing outside except to go to the parking lot.

I wouldn't mind that at all.

Again the smoking issue is trivial. It would deter some but if the economy was better and competition not as huge to PA and other places they would be breaking even. As it stands they have lost probably 30-40% of their base to Philly and other PA casinos. Their facility is poorly designed and with NY about to take another 20% of their customers it's over. If they can survive until the old dirty places like Taj and Resorts go under and get some real managment maybe they can survive if Obama doesn't sink us but for the most part they are in serious trouble. I'm mostly a poker player but I was so turned off not because of the no smoking but because the floor layout was a joke. Poker room for a place that big was poor and hard to find etc. I couldn't even walk right out on the boardwalk from the casino. I had to go through some garage. It's a mess.

Is this by the same people who designed City Center in Vegas? Very cold and sterile. Not sure I would ever have the desire to go in there. Looks to have all the charm of a medium security prison.

these are views of San Francisco's county jail at the hall of justice.

It's definitely one of the nicest casinos I've ever been to on the inside fwiw. The poker room is probably the nicest one I've ever been in, just never has traffic and the poker room is impossible to find!

I never really got what people were talking about with the boardwalk being dangerous. I've walked from Revel to Taj to Caesars plenty of times at like 2 a.m. and never had any issues. Although, I was usually pretty wasted and probably didn't notice all the filth surrounding me.

The building / interior is quite nice and what you would expect of a state of the art building.

The casino, however, is laid out poorly. It's a 5 minute walk and an escalator ride from the boardwalk... And you need a Sherpa to find the poker room. As has been mentioned above, it's a luxury hotel that happens to have a caino somewhere inside it.

Yeah, my wife and I walked from the Tun Tavern by the convention center (because it was like the only restaurant open at 10pm on a Tuesday night) all the way through the outlet zone, made a left on Pacific, stopped at a 7-11 for coffee, then continued down the boardwalk to Showboat at almost midnight. Didn't see a soul and never felt unsafe.

Not sure how often you tried to walk to the boardwalk, but first time at Revel I was able to walk from casino floor down the escalator and to boardwalk in no more than 2 minutes and never had to enter a garage. I'm sure you can go through the garage if you want to though.

I like the layout of the floor, the craps table by he social where they have a really nice auditorium with great live bands on the weekend, the digipit with dancers and the semi-open bar at the burlesque club. And what I like most about it, it's not a friggin zoo like borgata where everything is super smokey and the dealers are a bunch of idiots, both at craps/bj and poker. the floor at borg can be downright rude. even if they have never seen you, they treat you with disrespect because it's ok to treat poker players that way in a casino.

also the food at the poker table is the best I've had in all casinos I've ever been to, including all major vegas venues plus the price can't be beat.

the poker room is hard to find for the first time but cmon, is your sense of direction that of a woman? I just think alot of the people on here have not given the Revel a proper chance really.

In turn, I was shocked at how low-class the parx was. it's basically located inside a cement block in the middle of nowhere, dealers were talking strategy and making references to 2+2, talking football at all times while making mistakes dealing and not apologizing. The chairs were uncomfortable, the chips dirty, food was superbad, service took forever. But it has a 2-5 with 1k buyin. I really hope poker at revel picks up, it really deserves it.

edit: in regards to safety, I was superdumb first time I went to AC. This was a few weeks after relocating to US and I didn't have a sense of how much crime there is supposed to be down there so took the bus to resorts and walked to harrahs and then borg right through the ghetto in my suite I wore at work and 2k in cash in my pocket and didn't get robbed. It did feel dodgy and I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be doing it again and probably just ran well, but on the boardwalk it's not unsafe at all. It would make a ton of sense to rob the people walking between borg and harrahs but I don't think this happens that often either.. as usual, have common sense and even if you don't have it, you still might end up not getting robbed..

I have played poker and gambled in every casino from Foxwoods down to Borgata on the east coast. Every Casino in southern California and everyone in southern Nevada. I think I know what a consumer wants to walk into.

Whomever designed Revel created something out of a Stratosphere/Cosmopolitian type thing. Not sure why but nothing flows. Then you have to walk up this sprawling staircase to find the poker room which is hidden to the back right once you walk the wrong way to a bunch of doors. Once you get there you see a low ceiling, weird L shape thing going on that remembles a waiting room more than anything.


Yep I saw the same thing. More a management problem but the room still is better laid out than Revel and the action is much better.

What casino were you in? Some casinos have poker rooms that get crowded and some have poker rooms that are always empty.

I think the poker rooms at Borgata, Harrah's, and the Taj usually have a good amount of people in them.

Test

Forget the Revel, can AC be saved? The Revel is a young hipster European style casino in my opinion and the rooms, pool, nightclub are very nice. Yes the gaming space is laid out in a very unusual way but is has an Euro supercharged feel to it, unlike anything in AC. Revel's problem is AC's problem---losing gaming revenues every year to PA, NY, CT and surrounding states. I DON"T need to go to AC to gamble anymore---Valley Forge is 2 miles away. The same can be said for gamblers all over the NorthEast---there are casinos much closer to home now. Maybe in the old days gamblers would take 12 trips a year to AC, now i bet they take 2. Can AC be saved from too many casinos chasing too few and dwindling dollars(gaming revs are down for like 7 years running). The Borgata is a stand out in that it is doing well where everyone else seems to be slipping, but whats to come of AC? Love to know what people think!!

I was talking about Revel. There was literally NOBODY in the room but a dealer and the room manager. No-bo-dy. Thats crazy. This was Weds afternoon when Borgata has a big tourney. At the same time, Taj had a few tables going, but Showboat was busiest of the 3.