When the bells of those first slot machines rang out across Resorts, Atlantic City heard the sound of silver rolling out into giant piles of cash. On May 26, 1978, what was once a worn, seaside resort with a famous boardwalk and pier became a town with glittering possibilities. Steve Callendar, who is now a senior vice president of Resorts, was in that first class of dealers. Callendar remembers walking down the famous Boardwalk with 500 other newly minted dealers, with thousands of people lining their path.

“They treated us like we were celebrities, walking down in our dealer outfits. It was pandemonium. You never saw so many people trying to get into he same place at the same time. There was a nervous excitement, we were all learning as we went along,” said Callendar.

Resorts became the gateway to gambling outside of Las Vegas and other cities in Nevada. As a result, Atlantic City started raking in the cash, and never looked back. Resorts regional president Tony Rodio says with the opening of Resorts 30 years ago, the proliferation of gaming after that changed the landscape of the country.

Now there are more than 1,000 casinos nationally, including the new Pennsylvania slot parlors which, in the first year of operation, have siphoned away hundreds of millions of dollars from Atlantic City. The Spectrum Gaming Group, independent researchers for gaming nationally, say that total gaming revenue in Atlantic City was 4.8 billion dollars as of April 30, 2008. Though that sounds like a fortune, it reflects a loss in revenue of 6.5 percent from the same 12 month period, the year before.

The concern now is the perfect storm of a downturned economy, higher gas prices, nearby competition and smoking restrictions. Investors are positioning their bets on building 10,000 more hotel rooms in order to make Atlantic City not just a haven for day trippers with a roll of quarters, but for visitors looking for a destination resort.

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Patrons, however, will still be able to light up in unstaffed smoking lounges away from the table games and slot machines if the 11 individual casinos choose to build them. The ban takes effect Oct. 15, 2008.

Casino workers — many wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Nobody deserves to work in an ashtray” — burst into applause when the votes were counted and chanted, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

More than two dozen states nationwide regulate smoking inside casinos, eight ban smoking altogether inside the gambling halls, and two others will impose a total ban beginning in 2009.

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All told, the commission handed out $231,000 in fines to three casinos for letting underage patrons gamble or drink on their premises. Joe Corbo, general counsel for the Borgata, said these two cases represent the first time the casino has ever run afoul of New Jersey's age restrictions since opening in 2003.

“We've demonstrated how seriously we take these matters,” he said. “It's important for underage individuals to know how seriously we take this.”

The gambler, who was 19 at the time he applied for and obtained a Borgata player's club card on Aug. 26, 2005, was identified only by his initials, “A.P.” He was stripped of his drivers license for six months and fined $500. Visiting the casino 10 times, he bought more than $34,000 worth of chips and lost about $9,000 over 24 days from August 2005 until September 2006.

Corbo said the casino finally caught the teen gambler when a dealer who recognized him from a previous visit thought he looked too young, and asked him to show some identification. The Borgata, like many other casinos in Atlantic City, requires its employees to undergo training to spot underage customers, and offers cash rewards to workers who catch underage gamblers or drinkers. The Borgata offers $50 per detection, while Trump Entertainment Resorts gives out $100 per detection.

The Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort was fined $40,000 on Wednesday for allowing four underage customers to gamble there in August. And the Tropicana Casino and Resort was fined $10,000 for allowing an underage gambler to play slot machines, also in August.

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The company has been getting land ready next to the Showboat Casino Hotel for a new ocean-themed casino which is due to open in the second half of 2010. The first phase of the project calls for a single tower with 1,800 to 1,900 rooms. When a second tower is built, the total number of rooms would rise to 3,800/3,900.

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