Can sex improve the odds of saving modern-day loser Atlantic City?

They’ve tried everything else in Atlantic City, the nation’s second largest casino market, so now they’re placing their bets on sex.

Are the odds good that these coming attractions may boost tourist business there: beverage servers and blackjack dealers in fishnet costumes and a million-dollar steakhouse/gentlemen’s club? And soon: a “Naked Circus?”

Three casinos now have bikini beach bars on the sand. There’s a half dozen strip clubs that recently opened.

Even the famous New York strip club Scores wants to open a branch in an Atlantic City casino.

“It's all part of an effort to attract new business and fight off competition from casinos in neighboring states,” says the AP. “The emphasis on sexiness is designed to appeal to a younger — and hopefully more free-spending — crowd.

Gambling started here in 1978 to save the faltering economy. Only Las Vegas eclipses Atlantic City as a casino market but the once-successful area in the past few years has floundered in selling itself. Various efforts over the years have sought out the family trade, which did not help.

But back in 1978, when gambling was started, the casinos here kept coming. Revenues reached a high point in 2006 with US$5.2 billion.

But then the hard times hit. The recession. And more gambling competition such as

ten casinos in neighboring Pennsylvania that opened in just four years.

With its success, Atlantic City failed to diversity its gaming-based economy and fend off competition that was obvious two decades ago.

In recent years, the city has acquired a reputation as old and run-down.

"In our industry, the casino and entertainment and hospitality business, you want to provide things that are pleasing and exciting and fun," said Dennis Gomes, co-owner of Resorts Hotel Casino. "One of the things that most people find pleasing, exciting and fun is sex."

Resorts is displaying its female beverage servers in low-cut flapper dresses  —   ala the hit HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.” The result so far has been two lawsuits from older women who say they were fired for not being sexy enough.

Resorts also raised some eyebrows when it put up a billboard featuring a dancer's bare bottom to promote a stage show. The casino plans to soon host a nightly "Naked Circus" in a parking lot tent.

The Tropicana Casino and Resort, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, and the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa all dress beverage servers and even some dealers in lingerie or similarly revealing, cleavage-enhancing costumes.

Is Atlantic City seeking to emulate Vegas?

It certainly appears that way with new projects such as The Diving Horse, a $1 million gentlemen’s club that recently opened. The horse reference is to an old custom of animals diving off the famous Atlantic City pier.

"The Diving Horse is bringing the Las Vegas-style gentlemen's club to the Northeast," spokeswoman Shannon Niland said. "Vegas does that type of entertainment for a reason: sex sells."

Atlantic City has long been known for its older clientele. Their reaction to all this? No one yet knows. Atlantic city’s current motto is "Always Turned On" compared with "What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas."

It’s not only sex that Atlantic City is peddling, however. It is also trying to re-position itself as a more complete destination.

“The resort is furiously trying to remake itself into a vacation destination that happens to have gambling, but with no guarantee it has a winning hand even as other threats loom, including the possible expansion of casinos to north Jersey racetracks and a growing push for online gambling,” says the AP.

"We've always looked to promote Atlantic City as a sensual destination, and we started to push the envelope a little more," said Jeff Vasser, executive director of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Bureau. "But you have to balance it. At the end of the day, we are still a community that existed long before it was a casino town.”

David Schwartz, director of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Center for Gaming Research, said Atlantic City can be successful again. But it's going to require a reinvention, he added.

Some things that observers think Atlantic City is doing right include casino owners banding together to bring in major entertainers and a move to attract conventions and trade shows for badly needed midweek business.

But can Atlantic City turn its image around fast enough?

The odds may be against it.

One unfavorable sign: promoters are talking about changing the slogan of “Always Turned On” fpr something more relevant. But that effort has been going on for three years.

By David Wilkening