Betting on the Boardwalk

The dice are set to be cast in Atlantic City

As the shiny new roulette wheel slowed, the hopping ivory ball fell into the green "0" slot, allowing the croupier to rake in the bets. A few minutes later, against the odds, 'the ball dropped into the "00" slot, again making losers of almost all the bettors pressed against the table. The house, predictably, was starting off ahead.

Unlike most casinos, where the dealers and croupiers preside with a practiced haughtiness, those handling the tables in this huge new gaming room looked like clean-cut students on summer vacation and were prone to say such things as "Gee, I'm sorry you lost." The losers, too, were more casual than the average out-of-luck gambler. All they were risking so boldly at craps, roulette, baccarat and blackjack was play money--$250,000 of it--provided by the casino for a test run in preparation for the scheduled opening this weekend of the Resorts International Casino, the first of Atlantic City's newly legalized gambling palaces.

The Resorts International Hotel, which houses the new casino, is trusting that the bettors will keep coming up losers. Resorts Board Chairman James M. Crosby speculates that after being enlarged this summer, the casino will be bigger than any in Las Vegas and will eventually take in $100 million a year. Atlantic City officials have high hopes that the spinning wheels will pull them out of the massive slump this once glorious resort has been suffering. Fifty years ago, it was the leading vacation and convention center on the East Coast. Even before the casino turns a profit, the refurbished (at a cost of $35 million) hotel will be providing 2,000 jobs, increasing employment in Atlantic City by more than 10%. Several other new hotels, representing an investment of $300 million, are contemplated.

Last week's test run provided a preview of the casino's tasteful red, brown and orange decor. TIME Correspondent John Tompkins' assessment: "The equal of the most modern gaming rooms in Las Vegas, even if the croupiers, dealers and pit bosses are youthful amateurs who make up in friendliness what they lack in dexterity." Undoubtedly, the workers will acquire some of the hard professionalism of their Western counterparts when the real money starts flowing. Said one: "When the players start losing mortgage payments or food money, maybe "they'll start getting nasty." Since gamblers as well as dealers in Atlantic City are likely to be neophytes, Resorts International plans to offer instructional films on the various games and a section for practice with play money.

In addition to its casino, the 500-room hotel will have an array of elegant shops, a bar overlooking the gaming tables, a steak restaurant and a rubious French restaurant serving caviar at $18 an ounce. Final touches were being applied feverishly last week in the midst of the gambling rehearsal. A film crew was in the casino shooting a training segment that explains the Big Six wheel.

The 1,750-seat Superstar Theater, set to open with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, held a chorus line practicing its dance, "Boardwalk by the Sea," as electric saws whined and workmen hammered near the restaurant entrance. In the Rendezvous Bar, long-legged cocktail waitresses in skimpy orange costumes perfected their version of the "bunny dip" before a packed house.

Not everything was quite ready, because approval to begin operation came sooner than expected: the New Jersey Casino Control Commission issued the hotel a "conditional" license, pending completion of background checks on the employees and owners. Should links to organized crime be discovered, the license will be revoked.

Federal law-enforcement sources say that the ruling Mafia council, known as "the commission," met last winter and declared a two-year moratorium on casino infiltration. The bosses decided not to muscle into the Atlantic City gambling action until they were sure it was a big moneymaker. Instead, investigators say, the Mafia leaders decided to limit their investments to restaurants, garbage-collection companies and vending-machine operations in the city. But waiting to pounce on the big gambling pot, the sources say, are four crime families: the Gambino group, ruled by Aniello Dellacroce; the Genovese group, whose strongman is a Teamsters Union boss, Tony Provenzano; the old Bonanno clan, controlled by Carmine Galante; and the Philadelphia group, led by Angelo Bruno.

New Jersey has set up elaborate procedures to ensure that no Mafia infiltration does occur. Says Crosby, perhaps the ultimate optimist: "Atlantic City is the last place organized crime would want to get near because everyone is so thoroughly checked." Some federal officials, however, have doubts that the state's apparatus can effectively resist the four clans.

Local pessimists think traffic and parking problems may prevent anybody at all from infiltrating Atlantic City. There is little train or air service, so most people will arrive by car; traffic was a problem even before the casino's opening.

As the cars do inch toward the Boardwalk and the bettors belly up to the tables with real money, the Quaker founders of the old Haddon Hall Hotel, home of the new casino, will probably be set spinning in their graves as fast as the roulette wheels. A portrait of one of those founders, "Mother" Sara Leeds, was removed from the hotel at the family's request.

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