2 posts tagged “casino”

In the new Atlantic City, no longer is it sufficient to have merely a yen to roll some dice, eat some good grub and watch a name singer warble a dozen tunes. If Caesars vice president of marketing Erin Hansen has her way, visitors to Atlantic City will have a "lifestyle," too.
"Tony Bennett has played here a long time and he will continue to come, which is wonderful," said Hansen. "But we want to attract people who never came to Atlantic City, people who never thought to come to Caesars before. We're looking for new things all the time."

So Caesars created its Lifestyle Series, entertainment with a twist, especially during the warmer months. It begins on Sunday with a visit from Mario Batali, one of four TV chef types who will come to Caesars Circus Maximus Theater through October.

Batali will be in the refurbished 1,600-seat theater at 1 p.m. on Sunday, basically doing his TV gig. He will prepare several dishes on stage for the better part of an hour, taking questions from the audience, both about the food and his own nonfood life, as he rambles around the kitchen set.

"These people aren't just chefs any more," said Hansen. "They are celebrities, and people seem to be interested in what they have to say. They are good at telling stories, and whether it is about cooking techniques or their personal lives, it is something people want now."

While the Batali stage show is $25, there is also what Hansen called a "VIP Opportunity" to eat what Batali cooks. Caesars is closing its Mia restaurant at 4 p.m. for Batali to prepare and cook a four-course meal - or, more precisely, to cook a bit in the center of the restaurant while the Mia staff prepares the meal for about 100 ticket buyers. He will sign books and chat one-on-one during the dinner, which will cost $150 for one and $250 for a couple.

Caesars will have three other celebrity chefs doing similar shows and dinners over the next several months: Paula Deen on July 27, Tom Colicchio on Sept. 7 and Anthony Bourdain on Oct. 12. Buy tickets for the whole series and you'll get a discount - $80 for all four chefs.

In between all this food, the Lifestyle Series will also have somewhat homey chats with Carol Burnett and author Jackie Collins.

Burnett's "Laughter and Reflection" (9 p.m., June 21) will not be a traditional stand-up comedy show, said Hansen, "but an up close and personal." Burnett will show clips from her old TV shows and chat about them, answering audience questions as she goes, but mostly looking back on her career and the friends she has met along the way.

"Dine and Dish," the Collins show (noon, June 14), will be a lunch with Collins, as she talks to about 200 people in a Caesars ballroom about the writing process. Collins will stop and chat with every table, autographing books and giving writing tips.

"With the success of the shops at the Piers and restaurants like Mia, the profile of the Caesars customer has broadened," said Hansen. "We're looking to provide them different things to keep them coming." *

Caesars Atlantic City, 2100 Pacific Ave., "Up Close and Personal Caesars Chef Series," $25 (all four, $80), VIP Interactive Experience, $150 a person, $250 a couple, 1-800-736-1420 or ticketmaster.com, for groups of 10 or more, call 609-340-2802, www.harrahs.com.

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MGM Mirage Inc. plans to build a mega-casino resort worth up to $5 billion that will dwarf anything Atlantic City has seen before, the company said Wednesday.

The move is part of an ongoing gamble by casino operators to polish Atlantic City's image and attract upscale customers who want to do more than just bet money.

The project, which will be called MGM Grand Atlantic City, will cost between $4.5 billion and $5 billion, not including the land value and associated expenses, the company said in a statement.

It will be built on a 72-acre site at Renaissance Pointe that MGM owns, next to the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, which the company co-owns with Boyd Gaming Corp.

"We ... hope to re-energize the city's resort offerings and attract a new market of affluent East Coast customers," said Terry Lanni, MGM's chairman and CEO of the casino operator. "We believe the success at Borgata demonstrates the eagerness for further evolution of the nation's second-largest gaming market."

The project will consist of three hotel towers with more than 3,000 rooms and suites.

It will feature the largest casino floor in Atlantic City, with 5,000 slot machines, 200 table games and a large poker room, a 1,500-seat theater, as well as restaurants, nightclubs, a spa, 500,000 square feet of retail space, and a convention center.

The city's 11 casinos have invested billions of dollars to attract more upscale visitors who are drawn by entertainment, dining and shopping options, as opposed to day-trip gamblers who ride a bus into the city, play for a few hours, then go home.

"It's a very exciting project that is another step in Atlantic City's evolution to a full-scale destination resort, which is critical given the competition we currently face," said Joe Corbo, president of the Casino Association of New Jersey.

Atlantic City's casinos are being hurt this year by slots parlors in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York which are siphoning off gamblers that were once Atlantic City's exclusive customers.

Atlantic City's gambling revenue fell 4 percent from the start of the year through August, compared with the same period last year. It may mark the first annual revenue decline in the city's 29-year history of gambling.

MGM plans to build on about 60 acres of the site, setting 12 aside for future development, which may include a residential component. That is the same model the Borgata used when it opened in 2003. It is currently building a second hotel tower called The Water Club, which is expected to open before next summer.

Ground breaking is expected next year, with an anticipated opening in 2012.

MGM's stock dipped 68 cents to $99.07 in early trading, but the drop follows a recent run-up in the shares from $84 at the beginning of September.

Analysts were pleased with the news.

"It is a bet on what Atlantic City can become, not on what it is right now," said Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Robert LaFleur. "We are long-term believers that the market can transition from a predominantly day tripper market to more of a Las Vegas overnight destination."

Several analysts speculated MGM Mirage might take on a joint venture partner such as Dubai World, which recently announced it would take a 4.9 percent stake in the company and invest billions in joint ventures in MGM Mirage projects on the Las Vegas Strip.

Associated Press Writers Ryan Nakashima in Las Vegas and Michelle Chapman in New York contributed to this report.

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