The idea, part of the hotel’s ’20s-themed makeover, was not just that members of the gay community were a ripe market, but that they were something of a pop culture signifier whose support would also pull in a younger, hipper audience than Resorts had been attracting. Still, the opening of Prohibition in May was a sign that just as the city has courted various markets over the years - Asians, families and others - it is now reaching out to gay customers as a way to cope with too much competition and too few gamblers. So the most surprising thing about Resorts’ new turn may be that it didn’t happen sooner. On the hotel’s Web site, a menu tab reads “LGBT.”Ĭasinos have always promised a walk on the wild side, and Atlantic City’s raffish history includes rich, largely forgotten, gay chapters. Across the hall is a female impersonators’ show.
There is Prohibition, a new nightclub that is believed to be the first full-time gay bar at any big American casino. ATLANTIC CITY - At the Resorts Casino Hotel, the somewhat faded Boardwalk grande dame that became this city’s first casino in 1978 after New Jersey legalized the business, you can find slots and blackjack, concert posters featuring performers like Paul Anka and Wayne Newton, the de rigueur all-you-can-eat buffet and the other familiar diversions of Casinoland.īut there is also a rainbow flag flying above the entryway.
