Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter (writer of The Sopranos) have developed the hit US television drama ‘Boardwalk Empire’ based on Nelson Johnson’s novel ‘Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City’. Atlantic City today, with its regulated casino industry, is struggling against hard times and new competition but in the Prohibition era of the 1920s lawlessness and corruption were rife in ‘The World’s Playground’ in southern New Jersey. The present state governor, Chris Christie, earlier this year commented that Atlantic City has had a ‘historically corrupt, ineffective, inefficient government’.

Resorts Hotel Atlantic City was built in 1929 and on 26 May 1978 it opened the first legal casino in the US outside Nevada. On 10 December 2009, with approval from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, its mortgage lenders officially took control of the property after the owners defaulted on the $360 million debt in October 2008. Veteran casino executive Dennis Gomes and developer Morris Bailey have since bought Resorts Atlantic City for $35 million, the lowest price ever paid for a New Jersey casino, and the cancellation of the debt.

On 1 October employees were warned they could face lay-offs later this year when the property changes hands at the beginning of December. The Casino Control Commission hopes that Gomes, as an experienced operator with a reputation for improving the casino resorts he has managed, will preserve jobs and create more employment in due course. Gomes has said that Resorts will be brought back to life and that he disagrees with ‘gloomy’ analysts who see a bleak future for Atlantic City.

It has now been revealed that the new owners of Resorts Atlantic City intend to revamp the property in the style of ‘Boardwalk Empire’. Having a head start with the original building, built in the Art Deco period, the interior décor, uniforms and jazz music will all echo the early days of Atlantic City. Gomes and Bailey will be hoping they can emulate that former glory as well as that weekend in May 1978 when 80,000 gamblers tumbled through the doors of the new casino, leaving $3 million behind them. (E-10.08.10)

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