NBC – What if, after seven years of plunging casino revenues and fleeing customers, Atlantic City’s real problem was this: People are wearing too much clothing?
Scores, the famous New York strip club, will open a satellite establishment inside the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort next month — the first strip club in an Atlantic City casino in the 35 years of legal gambling at the New Jersey shore resort.
It will be the most audacious adult offering in an Atlantic City casino, though it’s not the first: Revel has offered the Royal Jelly burlesque show since it opened, the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa hosts a burlesque show every Thursday night, and dancers in bras and panties are common on gambling floors, including at the Tropicana Casino and Resort and the Showboat Casino Hotel.
“We feel this is the third leg of the Atlantic City triangle: gambling, alcohol and adult entertainment,” said Bob Gans, Scores’ managing partner. “It’s a natural.”
Since 2006, when the first casino opened in Pennsylvania and began taking away business that had gone to New Jersey for three decades, Atlantic City has been struggling with new competition popping up all around it. Revenue has fallen from $5.2 billion that year to just over $3 billion last year, and thousands of jobs have been lost in a decline that shows no signs of ending.
