Steve Perskie recalls that Atlantic City’s expansion into casino gaming in the late 1970s changed the opinions about the industry in both mainstream America and on Wall Street.
He also admits, however, that the evolving perceptions worked toward the detriment of the Boardwalk gaming community years later.
Steve Perskie
“I always preached to the city that our monopoly was temporary,” Perskie, 73, said in an interview last week. “Neither the public nor Wall Street embraced gaming at the time. But when we showed how successful casinos could be, I knew other states would do it right and do it quickly. That message was lost on city and state officials.”
Perskie, who in the 1990s also spearheaded a comprehensive restructuring of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, is one of four 2018 inductees to the Gaming Hall of Fame. He will be honored during the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas on Oct. 10.
Today, after nearly a decade of declining revenue and lost business, Atlantic City looks to be on the way back. Two renovated and reopened casinos, the introduction of legal sports betting, and a revived tourism market have fueled the recovery.
But Atlantic City gaming might not have happened at all without Perskie, who, as a young New Jersey legislator, led the effort to legalize casinos for the first time in the U.S. outside Nevada.
Governor Brendan Byrne signs the Casino Control Act as Steve Perskie watches
Gaming in New Jersey today doesn’t resemble the market Perskie helped create. Forty years ago, he couldn’t envision sports books at racetracks in northern New Jersey, or Internet gaming. He does remember the long lines to get inside Resorts Atlantic City, the city’s first casino and, for six months, its lone gambling facility.
“Everyone took notice and wondered ‘what the hell is going on in Atlantic City?’” Perskie said. “Perceptions changed. Mainstream America took notice, and Wall Street become open to financing the casino projects. Then Harrah’s and all the other big shots came here.”
Perskie was 33 and representing Atlantic City in the New Jersey Assembly when he drafted the legislation that would ultimately bring casinos to the Boardwalk. Six months earlier, New Jersey voters – by a 60 percent-to-40 percent split – agreed with the idea of casinos on the south New Jersey shore. Two years earlier, a similar statewide referendum failed.
The second campaign changed everyone’s mindsets.
“We made it about tourism,” Perskie said. “It wasn’t as much about New Jersey as it was about Atlantic City. In the 1970s, tourism and the summer industry were the state’s second largest economic component. Atlantic City, however, was in desperate shape. We made a compelling argument about saving Atlantic City.”
Perskie’s legislation – championed and signed into law by Governor Brendan Bryne – included the state’s Casino Control Act. He said the goal was to keep any organized crime influence out of the casinos. This was of particular concern because of organized crime’s ties to the Las Vegas casino industry at the time.
New Jersey had its own history of mob influence and corruption. By 1976, four of the previous five mayors of Atlantic City had gone to jail.
“The intense strength of the regulatory system was to say to the mob, ‘stay the hell out of New Jersey’,” Perskie said.
Perskie served in the Assembly from 1972-1978, where he was chairman of the taxation committee and was the Assembly’s Majority Whip. He moved on to the State Senate in 1978, eventually becoming majority leader.
Perskie left the legislature in 1982 after being named an Atlantic County Superior Court Judge. He served on the bench for seven years, resigning in 1989 to return to politics to join James Florio’s successful gubernatorial campaign. Perskie served as Florio’s chief of staff from 1989 to 1990, when the governor appointed him chairman of the Casino Control Commission.
More than a decade after the casinos launched, Perskie was given another chance to influence the state’s casino business. He oversaw a reorganization of the agency, making the role of commissioner a full-time job and instituting cooling-off periods so that commissioners couldn’t accept gaming industry jobs after their terms ended.
“They were radical changes, but they needed to take place,” he said.
After leaving the commission and spending time in private business and private law practice, Perskie was appointed a Superior Court judge in 2002 He retired from the bench seven years later and joined a New Jersey law firm to open a mediation/arbitration practice.
He happily admits today’s Atlantic City casino business is a far different story than it was at the beginning. The 10 years of declines were brought about, he said, by “market forces.” But the changes seem to have the community on an upswing.
“The casinos are doing nicely, and we now have a solid regional economic development program,” Perskie said.
Editor’s note: First in a series of profiles on the 2018 Gaming Hall of Fame inductees.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgamingreports.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
