Abstract: Eight years after Resorts opened, ten more casinos had opened, giving the city's 30 million yearly visitors eleven different places in which to try their luck. By 1986, the city had become the single most popular tourist destination in all of America — more popular than Las Vegas or even Florida's Disneyworld. The casinos brought in $5 billion a year and employed 40,500 people. They accounted for two-thirds of the city's tax revenues and had already poured $1 billion into state coffers to pay the utility bills of the elderly and poor from Cape May to Edison. Millions more were spent on housing and road projects in Atlantic City.

Keywords: casinos, Disney model, controlled space, gambling industry, Casino Reinvestment Development Agency,