Inside America’s Casinos: Stop 8 — Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa

Join CDC Gaming as we embark upon a road trip Inside America’s Casinos. For our eighth stop, we visit Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.

Mohegan Sun was the last stop on my visit to the northern part of the East Coast and it was now time to head down I-95 to Atlantic City. No more less-than-one-hour drives between casinos in the same familiar area. Now, it was a 250-mile five-hour journey to a very different gaming universe. Or if you think that’s too dramatic, it is definitely a different chapter in American gaming.

As I started heading south, leaving the forest-lined casino corridor of southeastern Connecticut, the quiet back roads soon turned into major highways, which then turned into a drive through huge industrial cities. But the transition from Connecticut to New Jersey was a lot bigger than the scenery. There’s also a huge difference between how gaming is structured and how it is perceived across these regions.

The first obvious differences are the numbers and the jurisdiction. New Jersey’s first casinos opened in 1978, following a voter referendum that passed in 1976, paving the way for the state’s Casino Control Act. Today, the Garden State is home to nine land-based casinos. Connecticut’s two casinos are operated by Native American tribal-state compacts, which were established in the early 1990s following Ronald Reagan’s signature of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988.

I was thinking about these fundamental differences as I was driving at night to Atlantic City. I’d just left a state full of forests, with two resort-style casinos spread apart, operated by tribes and built on their own land, heading toward an oceanfront city with nine commercial casinos stacked closely together. And arriving in Atlantic City, I found two very different casino systems.

Getting there – the Marina District

I haven’t been to Atlantic City for many years, I must admit. But I used to visit there a lot during my college days. We drove overnight from College Park, Maryland, and spent the little money we had over the weekend at the low-limit tables at Boardwalk casinos. When I approached Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, the first thing that came to mind was how different it felt from what I remembered.

Instead of the monopoly-style Boardwalk that had the Atlantic on one side and casino buildings on the other, I found myself in the Marina District, an area that was still marshland or at least a development site during my party days on the Boardwalk.

So instead of taking the Atlantic City Expressway, which would have led me to the back of the Boardwalk, I took Absecon Blvd, which led me into a spaghetti of roads that eventually landed me at where I wanted to go: Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.

First impressions — an upscale alternative

Borgata opened in 2003 as the flagship property in the Marina District, which was developed to provide a more modern upscale alternative. I did notice from afar the Marina itself with some yachts docked. But unlike the Golden Nugget that sits right on the Marina, Borgata is surrounded by roads that gave me a feeling it is an enclosed isolated parameter.

Perhaps it was the feeling of isolation, something that separates Borgata from its surroundings, that makes it seem more luxurious and out of reach. It could be the $1 billion price tag I knew about, or a combination of the two. But as I got closer to the golden-glass reflective towers, I knew I was on my way to a very different gambling experience than what I remembered from my student days on the Boardwalk a few miles away.

Borgata – Bringing the Las Vegas resort model to Atlantic City

For many years, Atlantic City relied on the Boardwalk casinos and many of these are starting to show their age. So the city needed a new lease on life and it feels like Borgata gave it exactly that. As it was developed as a joint venture and now operated by MGM Resorts International, I noticed the MGM footprint everywhere. It’s almost as if the guys at MGM took an instruction manual from the company’s properties on the south end of Las Vegas Boulevard and used it to build the Borgata.

Urban, yet high-end design

When I walked into the property, the first thing I noticed was what wasn’t there. Coming straight from my Mohegan Sun visit the night before, the Borgata didn’t have any overwhelming themes, no storytelling through design that is supposed to transport visitors to another reality. It just projected clean, high-class, urban design, including marble isles, a warm color palette of gold, beige, and dark wood, high ceilings, and balanced lighting carefully tuned to give the right ambience in different areas of the casino.

Everything about the Borgata gave me a feeling that I was at a high-roller room in a Las Vegas casino on the Strip — luxurious and refined, but still classy and not over the top.

Beyond gaming — a self-contained resort

I was wondering about the choice of words in the property’s name or, more specifically, about whether the bosses at MGM deliberately chose the order of the words in it. I felt like “Bortaga Hotel Casino & Spa” was a statement of intent, outlining the resort’s priorities. It sure felt like it by the design. The hotel has more than 2,700 rooms, split between the main Borgata Tower and the Water Club (now rebranded as the MGM Tower).

The property went through a $55 million renovation in 2020 and the upgrade shows. Everything looks modern and sleek, although the MGM Tower looked a bit disjointed when I entered it from the main casino floor.

In addition to the hotel, the other public spaces in Borgata also got upgraded as part of the facelift. The property has over 15 restaurants and dining spots, 14 luxury shops, and five bars. I liked the upscale Level One Cocktail Bar and Lounge, then went down for some more casual times at the outdoor beer garden, which I loved.

There’s also a 30,000-square-foot event center and the Music Box, a mid-sized live venue and entertainment hall that, like the rest of the property, looks elegant and maintained.

The gaming floor — a flowing casino journey

When thinking about gaming floors of resort-style hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, anything but easy orientation comes to mind. Whether it’s a myth or truth, many of these gaming floors feel as if they were intentionally designed to get you lost. However, this wasn’t the case in Borgata; it was actually the exact opposite.

I walked into the casino from the main entrance to the Borgata Tower and a few steps farther I was standing in the center of the casino. The 161,000-square-foot gaming floor is built very efficiently, almost like two adjacent large squares, with the games in the middle and restaurants, main aisles, and shops around the game spaces.

With 3,000-4,000 slot machines, 200 table games, and a nice-sized poker room, it’s not the biggest gaming floor I’ve been to, but certainly not one of the smallest. Still, it wasn’t confusing and I knew exactly where I was in most cases.

Although the floor space isn’t as large, it is heavily utilized. There are a lot more machines/tables per square feet as in the tribal casinos I just visited. So it feels more condensed, with a lot going on.

The guests — far beyond gamblers

Scanning the guests as I walked around, my first impression was of a very high ratio of hotel visitors to gamblers. There seemed to be many more elderly couples browsing the shops, dining, and walking slowly around the perimeter, compared to a younger gambling crowd that was busy walking around the machines and tables and playing. I’m guessing it’s part of Borgata’s draw as a resort-style holiday destination.

Most of the people I spoke to were from the nearby area, including New Jersey, Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, and a few from downstate New York. Many were staying at the hotel for a few nights. I didn’t find many who came from farther afield.

Leaving Borgata

As I walked out and started driving toward the Marina’s waterfront, I realized that this property didn’t try to redefine for me the Atlantic City casino experience. It already did that, about 20 years earlier. Finding the casino floor was straightforward and navigating it was intuitive. The gaming floor was well-utilized and there were just enough non-gaming facilities (e.g., bars, restaurants, shops) to give you a good choice without overwhelming you with too many options, as resorts often do. And everything is wrapped up in design and atmosphere that transcend style and elegance.

Borgata’s strength doesn’t lie in innovation, but execution. It has a clear vision of an elegant, modern, efficient resort that balances gaming and hospitality, a balance that isn’t always maintained at Boardwalk properties.