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[quote] LI casino cruises ready for Atlantic City action
Operators of casino boats expect players Atlantic City shut out to bring their gaming dollars aboard cruises

BY JOSEPH MALLIA
Newsday Staff Writer


Where will all the gamblers go? Long Island's casino cruise lines bet they know.

With the Atlantic City gambling industry shut down yesterday by a New Jersey state budget stalemate, floating casinos based in Freeport and Bay Shore geared up their roulette and Texas hold'em tables yesterday for extra action.

David Luerssen, 27, who recently returned from a tour of duty with the Army in Iraq, had planned to go to Atlantic City last night but instead wound up in Freeport, ready to board the Majesty, a floating casino.

Luerssen, a Long Beach native who lives in Germany, was running errands yesterday when he saw the Majesty's building.

"I heard it on the radio," Luerssen said of the closed casinos. "I decided to go on this cruise. I didn't know it existed. It beats going all the way to Jersey."

By mid-afternoon yesterday the Majesty Casino, which sails twice daily, had already seen an increase in calls from New York players who otherwise would have gone to South Jersey, said David Reale, poker room manager on board the casino.

Reale said 138 customers visited the casino last night when typically between 80 and 100 would be on board in nicer weather. He said he expects that trend to continue if Atlantic City casinos stay closed.

The casino cruise ships sail three miles off Long Island's South Shore into international waters, and return after five or six hours.

At Coin Castle Casinos, which opened in Bay Shore three weeks ago, managers looked forward to benefiting from New Jersey's loss.

"Of course we're hopeful we'll be more busy because of the shutdown," said Coin Castle Casinos operations manager Kerri Rivas. " ... Hopefully the people not going there will go here."

Foxwoods Casino in eastern Connecticut was inundated with phone calls yesterday, spokesman Bruce MacDonald said.

"Our hotel reservations people received what I would say is a significant increase in calls today from people who were planning to go to Atlantic City, but were looking for alternatives," MacDonald said.

Some businesses weren't cheery about the New Jersey shutdown. For Stan Spirn, owner of Stan's Limousines in Cedarhurst, it meant the bottom dropping out of the Long Island limo market.

"I lost 20 jobs today. I've had five bachelor and bachelorette parties alone cancel," Spirn said. Each job represents at least $500 for a six-hour minimum, though most cost far more, he said. Spirn's employees also lose out, he said. "I have my chief driver just sitting here crying. He had a 15-hour job in A.C."

Academy Bus' Port Authority terminal yesterday eliminated its usual 30 Atlantic City round-trips. And Harran Transportation Co. in West Babylon had to cancel two charter bus rentals and eight daily bus runs, costing $7,500 a day -- and counting, said operations manager Harlan Simonson.

"It's definitely a setback," he said. "The loss of revenue is tremendous."

For the few travelers who took a bus to Atlantic City yesterday, a philosophical attitude helped. "Being that we had the rooms we were going anyway. Why not?" said Gwen Richard, 78, who awaited a Greyhound departure at the Port Authority, in hopes of meeting her daughter at one of the Trump casinos.

For Barbara Harris, a financial industry worker from Manhattan, the gambling shutdown wasn't the end of the world for her and the two friends traveling with her. "We had a trip planned, and we're going," Harris said as she tried to find a bus to Atlantic City yesterday.

In Atlantic City yesterday, hundreds, eager to leave, jammed the bus terminal's departure gates.

The casino floors were all lit up -- but no one was gambling.

At the Resorts Casino, velvet ropes blocked all gaming areas, but the slot machines and other gambling equipment appeared ready to reopen the moment New Jersey's budget battle ends.

The boardwalk was nearly empty, as were amusement arcades and shops.

"This is a time machine. This is how it used to be," before the arrival of gambling in 1978 revived the once-decaying resort, said lifelong Atlantic City resident Wendell Brown, 48.

"You think today is bad. Wait until tomorrow. I give it three or four days" until there are virtually no tourists left in Atlantic City, Brown said.