It’s all part of an effort to attract new business and fight off competition from casinos in neighboring states. The emphasis on sexiness is designed to appeal to a younger - and hopefully more free-spending - crowd.
Ever since gambling started in the nation’s second-largest casino market in 1978, Atlantic City has been torn over whether to market itself as a family resort, or as Sin City East. Guess which side is winning?
"In our industry, the casino and entertainment and hospitality business, you want to provide things that are pleasing and exciting and fun," said Dennis Gomes, co-owner of Resorts Hotel Casino. "One of the things that most people find pleasing, exciting and fun is sex."
His casino is testing the boundaries of Atlantic City, which for all its history as a bawdy vice destination at the turn of the century - witness the HBO hit series "Boardwalk Empire" about crooked politicians, brothels and speakeasies - has been rather tame when it comes to sex as a marketing tool. The low-cut flapper dresses Resorts is making its female beverage servers wear have already generated two lawsuits from older women who say they were fired for being judged insufficiently sexy in them.
Resorts raised some eyebrows, and the ire of New Jersey’s public transit agency, when it put up a billboard featuring a dancer’s bare bottom to promote a stage show. And next month, Gomes promises, the casino will host a nightly "Naked Circus" in a parking lot tent.
The Tropicana Casino and Resort, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, and the Borgata Hotel Casino Spa all dress beverage servers and even some dealers in lingerie or similarly revealing, cleavage-enhancing costumes. Bally’s Atlantic City has its iCandy Burlesque dancers at a casino lounge.
If it seems like Atlantic City is trying to catch up to Las Vegas - the original Sin City - it is. The Diving Horse, a $1 million-plus gentlemen’s club/steakhouse, opened two weeks ago with Vegas on its mind.
"The Diving Horse is bringing the Las Vegas-style gentlemen’s club to the Northeast," spokeswoman Shannon Niland said. "Vegas does that type of entertainment for a reason: sex sells."
Atlantic City has had to walk a fine line in promoting itself as an edgier, sexier resort without alienating more conservative customers. Its current motto is "Always Turned On" - not quite as risque as "What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas."
"We’ve always looked to promote Atlantic City as a sensual destination, and we started to push the envelope a little more," said Jeff Vasser, executive director of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Bureau. "But you have to balance it. At the end of the day, we are still a community that existed long before it was a casino town. We could never get away with ‘What Happens Here Stays Here.’"
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