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Atlantic City is in trouble. It is no secret that the gambling Mecca suffered huge losses over the course of the recession. Though it took a while for things to get settled, the recession is now officially over but Atlantic City is none the better. In fact, it is still looking for ways to cut back. The most recent was a layoff of over 1,300 workers in the casinos. The reason for the layoffs was because of the lack of revenue from slots and table games in many consecutive months. This is horrible news for the casinos in the area that were hoping the market changes would return them to their pre-recessionary numbers. Unfortunately it was not meant to happen that way. Now there may be more problems brewing for the location. It seems that Pennsylvania casinos are cutting in on Atlantic City revenues, which is something the gambling center may not be able to stomach.

Employees in the area are expected to start looking to Pennsylvania for employment, rather than staying in the Atlantic City direct area. Not only did Atlantic City layoff a group of workers earlier, but they recently sent out a notice that more workers may be in the same boat if things don’t improve substantially in the near future. Pennsylvania is offering the most competition right now. Not only did it open a huge casino, Sugarhouse Casino, recently, but that casino has seen a huge amount of activity. It is a premiere location that rivals the casinos in Atlantic City easily and people are aware of it. They know that Sugarhouse offers some of the best slots games in the market and offers a much wider variety of them than Atlantic City does. Though it is a farther drive, it isn’t far enough that avid gamblers won’t make the trek. Plus with the bonus of new games, it isn’t difficult to see why they would want to make the move. Atlantic City has long been declining and now things are coming to a head for the area. Only time will tell if it is able to rally or if the casinos in the area will officially fall to the competition.

It may sound hard to believe, but there are still some countries that aren’t interested in online gambling or legalizing it. Of note on the issue are South Africa and Israel. Now Newfoundland is being added to that list. It is an interesting issue because the world of online gambling has proven to be so lucrative in past months. It is one of those things that is almost a no-brainer among legislators. Many believe that the recession has created a huge need for big revenue in the market. The numbers don’t lie- the recession was hard on every economy. The deficits are huge for countries and they don’t have a lot of options that can bring in the billions of dollars needed. In fact, gambling is one of the few viable options when it comes to generating the kind of cash needed to overcome the deficits involved and to manage the coming years of expenses that are upon them.

Despite the huge dollars available some countries are just not interested. Newfoundland is one and it stands out because of its positioning in the Canadian market. Canada for the most part is staying out of the mix in terms of making mass decisions on the issue. Individual provinces are writing their own rules and making laws. This could prove problematic in the future when there is no universal law throughout, but for now it is how the government is handling gambling. Newfoundland legislators consider the province to be impervious to the problems of the post-recessionary market. They see their province as financially strong and economically viable with no need for gambling as an aid to bringing in money. Though there may be changes in the future, there are going to be no moves made now that will allow gambling into the province. They believe that though the economy did suffer after the recession, it managed to turn around by itself with minimal changes by the government. Right now Newfoundland is dependent on money that comes from offshore oil, cigarette taxes and alcohol taxes. They believe that for now that is enough to sustain their economy and help turn things around.

Now that gambling is proving to be a savior for many other countries, Bulgarian officials are hoping to make the same advancement with gaming. The fact is that there are billions of dollars available in the market and one by one countries are realizing it. They know that there are few options as lucrative to the market. If legislators can write the proper code, then they can bring in these billions and truly turn around their depressed market. The one problem that is plaguing the Bulgarian market is the lack of laws. Right now they are sketchy at best- that means that outside companies are coming in to take money of residents, but those residents have little to no protection if something goes wrong. Remember that the world of the internet is for the most part anonymous. Any company can set up shop online, have a private server and bilk customers out of millions before they are caught. When they don’t payout, then finding them is difficult. They can immediately disappear and if they are housed in a foreign country “backroom” casino somewhere, they will be virtually untraceable to any authorities. It could pose a serious problem for gamers in the Balkans.

Right now the government in Bulgaria is trying to up its legislation and gambling laws. So far though it has been a decade that the country has been working on it. Right now there is a new law that is set to take place at the end of 2010. THis new law changes gambling in the borders of Bulgaria and part of its focus is to protect gamers. There are specific jurisdiction rules to be implemented and any company found to be in violation of those laws is going to face years of prison and hefty fines. It is the first real move the govenrment has made to protect its citizens from gamers, while still allowing them access to games. Right now licensing in the country costs 500,000 Euros. It is scheduled to bring in a lot of money to the government and come up with a great gaming option for citizens that will protect them.

Gambling is proving to be the financial solution for more and more countries in the world. No one can argue that gambling is a billion-dollar business. It offers a revenue stream that few other industries can due to the huge amount of money available. Since the recession, countries that formerly were against gambling have been slowly opening their doors to the change to allow it in. Tax revenue dollars are huge and in the billions when it comes to online gambling. Bulgaria is one country that has suffered greatly due to the recession and its own economic problems. If you look at the worst in the market in the world, you are going to have a long list of Balkan troubles.

One of the ways the country started turning things around is by pushing for tourism. That successfully changed the market and moved it to a place where growth was evident. Now legislators are looking to online regulation and legalization of gambling to be another savior for the market. The biggest advanage of the move was to bring gambling to the many households in the countries. Gamers are coming into the market quickly and companies want to be ready to handle the pressure of a demand in gaming. No matter what country you are in, gambling is proving to be a viable way to spur the economy due to public interest and cost of gaming. It is highly affordable and hundreds-of-thousands of new gamers are entering the market. The one problem is that rules in Bulgaria are no yet sorted out. There are a lot of games that are unregulated and gambling websites are moving in on the public in the country quickly. They want to capitalize on the money to be made, and with no regulation they are having a great time. Unfortunately this could continue to bring more problems to the area. If legislators do not sort out gambling laws this could bring in more problems for the future. No one knows how far the market is going to go before legislators step in and make the necessary changes.

Part two coming next.

Atlantic City is another gambling location that is having problems with financial recovery since the recession. Formerly, Atlantic City grew its own economy up to being a viable option for US gambling. It pitted itself up against Las Vegas and successfully managed to hold its own ground and keep its own customer base. In fact, back in 2006 Pinnacle Entertainment even purchased a location in the city for $260 million. It was scheduled to be a location Pinnacle would develop in the future into a gambling Mecca in the area.

Pinnacle, of course, is a gambling leader in the market and was hoping to expand with the Atlantic City location. Then the recession happened and all plans were put on hold indefinitely. No one knew where the recession would take the economy and first now are things fleshing out as to how they are going to be in future years. It is taking a while for things to turnaround and that is having an effect on businesses in the gambling industry.
Once the recession of 2007/2008 happened, it made things difficult on all economies. The credit bust, along with the automobile bust, both worked together to make things difficult on everyone and every business. While people ended up in the unemployment lines in droves, businesses closed down in record numbers. They had to lay people off to survive and many had to close altogether. Pinnacle Entertainment was forced to stock plans on building the new casino in Atlantic City and wait out the recession to see what its future plans should be. In the end, the future plans were affected negatively by the recession. Pinnacle now is looking to unload the land it formerly purchased with high hopes. It wants to sell the plot of land for 70% of what it purchased it at a few short years ago. If this is any indication of where the economy has become, it is proof that things are hard on businesses in industries that were formerly thought of as impervious. It is proving more difficult than anticipated for companies to find revival since the recession and they are having problems with recovery.

There is more bad news for Nevada. Over the past three years the state has seen a notable decline in revenue and that is meaning more and more problems for the state. Since the recession, all states have had problems financially, but Nevada has seen them since a year before the recession. It has been since 2007 that Las Vegas’ economy has been on the decline. Part of the issue can be attributed to the fact that gambling is becoming more popular. At one time Las Vegas was considered to be the hub of US gambling. If you wanted to spend an exciting weekend of entertainment, wagering, drinking, shows and hotel stays, then Las Vegas was the nearest place to head off to. Now, things are quickly changing. Gambling centers are cropping up around the US and they are spreading the gambling market thinner and thinner among the world. That is bad news for casinos that once held a strong market share. Now they are having to share that with neighboring competitors.

Las Vegas’ problems stem partially from having one main economy. In a lot of ways Las Vegas is like Detroit Michigan. Detroit built is financial future on one main economy: auto manufacturing. It housed a number of large companies and manufacturing plants that were heavily reliant on the auto industry. One of the primary causes of the recession was the auto manufacturing bust. Dealerships were closing down and there were a wide range of problems for companies to deal with. When the auto manufacturing industry took its huge hit, Detroit plants closed down. That left millions of dollars missing from the state and local governments and it also left millions of residents without jobs. It was a hard time for everyone involved and experts are saying one of the biggest issues is that those jobs will never be replaced. It has caused the Detroit area to be a wasteland in a lot of ways and waiting for the next move to change its economic state. Las Vegas is the same in that it built its economy on one industry: gambling. That is making it difficult for the city to find recovery because it has no secondary market to rely on for a turn around. It has to revive the gambling market one way or another or face future disaster financially.

If you have been to Las Vegas then you know how much is available in the city. The number of casinos are just the tip of the iceberg with regards to the city. If you visited a few years ago, it would do you well to visit again. Over the past few years Las Vegas officials realized that it is not impervious to market changes. It was once thought that people would gamble no matter what. They would come in droves to places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas for their gambling needs and both cities would have no problems with revenue or tourist attractions as a result. Unfortunately the recession taught the officials a hard lesson.

It seems that officials didn’t bank on the fact that the 2008 and 2009 recession would cause their numbers to diminish greatly. People were rendered jobless throughout the recessionary months. They lost their jobs in record numbers. Unemployment rates soared and that caused people to cut back drastically on their spending. Consumers were hard pressed to find valid reasons why they needed to gamble and most people didn’t. They cut wagering out of their budgets altogether. This meant savings for them, but casinos started to feel the pinch. Though once they had millions to work with, the recession brought that number down considerably. Of course their expenses remained the same and that proved difficult for many to manage. Without the same revenues coming in, but the same expenses it was hard to manage.

In response to the problem, Las Vegas came up with City Center. This was a huge addition to the Vegas skyline and included a premiere billion-dollar development of retail outlets, entertainment/conference centers, casinos, condominium communities and attractions. It was hoped that this would spur a new market to the city and return the revenue numbers to what they were prior to the recession. Unfortunately, City Center thus far has underperformed, but that doesn’t mean it is out. The coming months are when analysts predict that things truly will begin to change to what the market was back in 2007. Hopefully Las Vegas won’t have to wait much longer for true change to come about.

One of the biggest problems the recession created was the jobless rate. Record numbers were reached during the height of the recession and now, though it is months later, little improvement has been made. Some economies have seen their double-digit unemployment rates come down to single digits, but that is still not good enough news for many analysts. They believe that until the rate is closer to what its average was pre-recession, the economy of the US will still be in trouble. Despite the negative result of a high unemployment rate, there are still some nascent signs of improvement. One such improvement is from an unexpected source.

It seems that the very thing that is highly controversial to the market—gambling—is what is bringing the hope for new jobs. Take Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware for example. The states just approved table games and that is opening up a new job market. More gambling tables means the need for more employees to manage them. Whether it is a dealer to manage a table, or just wait staff to handle the increase in patrons, it still means that there are more jobs on the horizon of the job market. One state that is creating a lot of jobs is Pennsylvania. Experts reported that over 4,400 jobs have been created due to the result of approving and allowing table games. The state admits its new need for clerks, dealers, security and managers to handle the substantial increase in business. The question is, is it all worth it?

A resounding “yes” is the answer. Analysts have estimated that slot machines in the state are scheduled to bring in over $116 million in tax-revenue dollars this month alone. Though that could be a record number due to the newness of the market, it still is indicative of an overall increase in revenue. Pennsylvania is not going to deny that increase in revenue, even if it is exaggerated due to the circumstances. If you add to that the advantage of having over four-thousand people out of the unemployment line, it means a great advantage for the residents overall.

Though the world of online gambling has grown steadily over the past few months, land-based gaming has seen trouble. It seems that most gamblers in the US have cut back on their casino visits. In particular during the recession many gamblers who were left without discretionary funds, had to cut gambling out of their budgets altogether. Though that still left some room for a few online games, it cut out venturing to land-based casinos for gaming fun. The reality is that a lot of land-based casinos are losing money due to the huge growth and convenience of online gambling websites. No longer do people have to pack up, get babysitters, travel for a few hours, find parking, wait in lines and then wait to gamble. If you have a computer and internet access, you can log on in a matter of minutes and be playing your favorite casinos games. These days online casinos offer the same games you will find in a land-based casino and most of the times, with better bonuses and specials.

Las Vegas and Atlantic City are two locations that were formerly equated with gaming excellence. If you wanted the best in casino gambling, you found a long weekend to travel to either location and have gambling fun. Unfortunately, the two markets are now suffering and showing no signs of recovery in the near future. Officials for Atlantic City gaming recently announced that revenues are down by 5% from the same time last year. Part of the changes are due to the added competition of Pennsylvania gaming companies. The problem is that gamblers are being spread thin and now that more and more casino locations are coming into the market, competition is steep. Gambling Meccas of old like Las Vegas and Atlantic City are having problems keeping up with the market. There is little they can do to compete with the overwhelming bonuses that online casinos and new casinos are creating when their budgets are already suffering. Competition is a good thing—for customers—but not such a good thing for companies that don’t have the ability to keep up. Without some tangible changes, Las Vegas and Atlantic City could be in for trouble in coming months of performance.

Las Vegas casino operators are hoping for a market turnaround. Since the recession the city has taken a hard hit. At the height of the recession the city’s unemployment rate was well into the double digits. That left thousands of area residents in financial turmoil. According to reports from Clark County, approximately 15% of people were out of work and that adds up to about 125,000. The problem with an unemployment rate that high is that it causes other problems. First of all, it causes a growth in defaults on home loans. The number of defaults in mortgage loans were up to 60% at the height of the recession for the city of Las Vegas. The high unemployment rate also meant that the economy continued to suffer because people had no discretionary funds to fuel back into the economy. It caused a lot of problems for local businesses that also struggled.

Despite the bad news, the Las Vegas casino industry is still hopeful. For example, casinos are still building promotions and taking on big-dollar endeavors. City Center was one billion-dollar project. This was built on the Strip and it brought a myriad of positive changes to the market. Shopping centers, condonium complexes, convention centers and casinos were all built up in an effort to attract new customers into the market. Thus far City Center has not been as successful as hoped, but it is still a new project. Experts are hoping that as the market continues to regulate itself, City Center will grow into what its developers had in mind in the first place.

The coming months will be telling for the casino market in Las Vegas. City officials are hoping that all the combined efforts for advertising and promotions that bring customers in, will work. They are creating deep discounts and packages for tourists who are planning on visiting. With some great discounts, Las Vegas may still be able to turn around but even experts know that it will take time for that to happen. Watch out for the discounts and take advantage of them- it is a great time to get in on the fun of Las Vegas.