Those three proposed billion‑dollar casinos planned for the New York City area? Don Guardian says he isn’t worried.
“If you live in the five boroughs and you want to do a little gambling at night and have a good steak, I’m sure you’re going to be able to go to one of these properties,” he said, before adding a snarky thought.
“If they open — and if they’re able to stay open,” he said.
Guardian, the former Atlantic City mayor and now a state assemblyman representing the area, said he doesn’t impact those potential alternatives in the New York area are going to have a big impact.
“I don’t think we’re going to lose the weekend traffic,” he said. “We’re not going to lose the summer traffic. We’re not going to lose the conventions.”
Guardian made the remarks Wednesday morning while welcoming attendees to Day 2 of the ReNew Jersey Business Summit & Expo in Atlantic City — and before anyone dismissed his comments as rose‑colored optimism, he made a point of acknowledging the city’s past mistakes.
In fact, Guardian said his confidence today comes directly from those failures.
“Twelve years ago, when everybody went bust, we weren’t expecting it,” he told the crowd of hundreds of business leaders.
After nearly three decades with no meaningful East Coast competition, Guardian said Atlantic City’s casino industry simply wasn’t prepared for what came next when gaming expanded to neighboring states.
“Atlantic City casinos weren’t prepared,” he said plainly.
Now, he argued, they are.
Guardian said the difference today is an industry — and a city — that understands it no longer holds a monopoly and must compete on experience, investment, and quality of life. He described an alignment between casino operators, city government, and developers that he said he hasn’t seen in more than three decades working in Atlantic City, including time as a casino executive.
“This is the first time that I can remember that everyone is on the same page,” Guardian said.
He pointed to more than $2 billion in casino investment in recent years, along with a push by the city to clean up neighborhoods and encourage new development beyond the Boardwalk. Among the most critical components, he said, is housing.
“There are 32 developments that have been approved for this year,” Guardian said. “Even if a quarter of them get developed, it brings in a lot of new market‑rate housing, which is what Atlantic City needs right now.”
Guardian also acknowledged that an industry once viewed as a perpetual cash cow needed to be stabilized — and, in some ways, rescued. Internet gambling and sports betting, he said, have done exactly that, now accounting for roughly half of Atlantic City’s gaming revenue.
While Atlantic City may not be a traditional “family destination,” Guardian said the city and surrounding area still offer a range of non‑gaming attractions, pointing to the indoor water park, the aquarium, the Absecon Lighthouse, and even Lucy the Elephant in nearby Margate.
But for Guardian, the most important change isn’t any single attraction, it’s the mindset.
That’s why he remains unconvinced the proposed New York City‑area casinos will dramatically cut into Atlantic City’s core business. Beyond questions of market saturation, he noted that Atlantic City itself has seen billion‑dollar investments fail before when the numbers didn’t add up.
Rose-covered glasses? Perhaps.
Guardian, as is his fashion, offered up a bit of comedy to explain his confidence.
“Thank God they’re not in Manhattan, because that would certainly hurt us very badly,” he said. “Being in the outskirts is great, because if you know anyone that lived in Manhattan, they wouldn’t be caught dead in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island — or New Jersey, for that matter.”
The joke landed, but the message was serious. After learning painful lessons from its collapse, Guardian believes Atlantic City now understands what it takes to compete — and isn’t expecting the future to look anything like the past.
