Post-War Decline

• Atlantic City was the seaside destination of choice for many residents of the northeastern United States during the first half of the 20th century, but the advent of commercial air travel opened up new destinations like Florida and the Caribbean islands to tourists. By the 1960s, sharp declines in tourism left Atlantic City in a state of urban decay, and elected officials soon floated legalized gambling as a way to regrow tourism.
  
  

Paving the Way

• Voters in 1974 turned down a referendum to legalize gambling in New Jersey by more than 400,000 votes. Just two years later, however, voters narrowly approved a second referendum allowing gambling in Atlantic City only, making it the first city in the eastern United States to have legalized gambling.
  
  

First Casino

• Developers converted the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall Hotel into Atlantic City's first casino, Resorts International, and it opened in May 1978. Crooner Steve Lawrence made the first legal wager in the city, losing $10 at a craps table.
  
  

Casino Boom

• Several casinos quickly opened in the late 1970s and early 1980s: Caesars and Bally's in 1979; Sands Hotel and Casino, Harrah's and the Golden Nugget, the first ground-up casino construction in the city, in 1980; and Hugh Hefner's short-lived Playboy Casino and the Tropicana in 1981. Real estate mogul Donald Trump also opened two casinos in the 1980s and one in 1990, and the Showboat opened in 1987.
  
  

Later Openings

• As of 2009, the most recent casino to open in Atlantic City was the Borgata in 2003. Two casinos are in the planning stages: the Revel Resort and the MGM Grand, though the 2009 recession delayed the construction of those projects.
  
  

Setbacks

• Although casinos boosted the number of visitors from 7 million in 1978 to 33 million in 1988, they now have competition from legalized gambling in New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Developers imploded the Sands in 2007, and the Pinnacle casino, planned for its plot, was postponed indefinitely in 2008.