Borgata opens, resort aims for hipper, younger crowd

John Curran

Thursday, July 3, 2003 | 9:49 a.m.

ATLANTIC CITY -- With a pinch of Vegas attitude, a slew of high-tech gadgetry and some amorous accents, the first new Atlantic City casino in 13 years opened its doors, gambling that its edgy appeal will tap into a younger, richer crowd than the low-rolling senior citizens the market is famous for.

The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, a $1 billion play by two Nevada casino companies eager to get in on the lucrative East Coast gambling business, began taking bets just before midnight Wednesday, after keeping the opening time a secret to avoid a crush of gamblers at the doors.

"Borgata, baby, Borgata!" said actor Stephen Dorff, making a ceremonial first roll of the dice at craps table No. 4, surrounded by scantily-clad Borgata Babes cocktail waitresses and Borgata executives.

Slowly, the casino began to fill up with gamblers eager to check out the new game in town.

"I had to be here, just for the excitement of it," said Rosemarie Leone, 57, of Haddon Heights. "They said it was going to be beautiful and lavish and it is."

As casino events go, the mid-week debut was low key. The casino is anything but: At 2,002 rooms, its 480-foot gold glass tower rising above the skyline, Borgata is bigger than any of the 11 other casinos -- in rooms, casino space, employee count and other ways.

Built atop the site of former municipal landfill, its 40-acre off-Boardwalk location is four times the area of most Boardwalk casinos, but it is the amenities and attitude that Borgata operators and New Jersey casino regulators believe will help the casino win big.

Boyd Gaming Corp., which operates the casino in a joint venture with casino giant MGM MIRAGE, spent more than $30 million on technology for the building.

Rooms are wired for high-speed Internet access, with keyboards placed inside TV consoles and two other ways to access the Web from laptop computers. The 3,650 slot machines are all coinless, accepting cash but spitting out only ticket vouchers on winning wagers, not coins.

It makes for an unusually quiet casino, without the tinny clink-clink-clink of coins dropping into slot machine hoppers.

Workers, meanwhile, wear microchip-embedded uniforms that can be tracked by the casino for laundering, storage and theft prevention purposes. The casino's 5,000 workers each get their own personal e-mail account and voicemail boxes.

Borgata, whose racy, $10 million ad campaign urges gamblers to "Go to your happy place," emphasizes romance in some unlikely places. Showers are built for two people, and the hotel rooms' reversible doorknob placards say "Tidy Up" on one side and "Tied Up" on the other, instead of "Do not disturb."

Then there are the private rooms at Mixx, a two-story restaurant-nightclub. Equipped with leather chairs, an L-shaped leather sofa and sliding glass windows -- that can be covered by floor-to-ceiling curtains -- they cost $1,000 to rent for a night.

They come with $250 bottles of champagne, wine or other liquor.

Mixx general manager Eric Millstein said the rooms won't be used for sex. "That type of behavior will not go on here," he said.

But Boyd officials make no apologies for the amenities.

"It's a fun place with a lot of energy. It's got an international feel and there's sensuality to it," said Rob Stillwell, vice president of communications for Boyd Gaming Corp.

Experts say the game in town is likely to drain business from the other casinos, which won $4.3 billion from gamblers last year.

"It'll take some market share, but it will also grow the market," said Michael Pollock, editor of Michael Pollock's Gaming Industry Observer newsletter. "There's a lot of pent-up demand in the Northeast, and it's new and of a quality like Las Vegas."

First, Borgata -- which is Italian for "village" -- must learn how to handle big crowds.

"This is going to be a baptism of fire, opening on a holiday weekend like this," said Richard Franz, director of compliance for the state Casino Control Commission, watching as dealers prepared a blackjack table before the opening.

"It'll be wall-to-wall people," he said.