Mayor Marty Small Sr.’s Op-Ed in NY Daily News Puts Atlantic City’s Lessons on the National Stage

Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. is taking the city’s story, and its hard-earned lessons, straight to one of the nation’s largest media markets.

In an opinion piece in the New York Daily News published on the August 15th, Mayor Small weighed in on New York’s high-stakes push to license three new downstate casinos. Drawing from more than four decades of lived experience in America’s original East Coast casino town, he issued a clear challenge: if New York is going to build casinos, they must serve the people who live in those neighborhoodsnot just the developers who profit from them.

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“Casinos alone don’t build cities. People do,” Mayor Small wrote.

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The Mayor’s piece pulls no punches in recalling Atlantic City’s own history. While gaming brought thousands of middle-class jobs and kept city services running, it also displaced families, erased neighborhoods, and failed to deliver the full promise of reinvestment. The lesson, he says, is that casinos must be part of a broader, long-term plan that includes housing, small business support, infrastructure upgrades, and economic diversification.

Mayor Small contrasted New York’s current licensing process, with Coney Island, the Bronx, and Queens among the proposed sites against Atlantic City’s own efforts to strengthen its economy beyond gaming. In recent years, the city has cut property taxes for six straight years, reopened the Atlantic City Aquarium, restored the historic Pop Lloyd Stadium, and secured $50 million to rebuild the Boardwalk and repair streets.

Initiatives like GreatDayAtlanticCity.com, launched to give youth and seniors a platform to tell the city’s story, are part of a wider push to ensure growth reaches every neighborhood. Partnerships with Visit Atlantic City, the Greater Atlantic City Chamber, and local development corporations are drawing new private investment — from Stockton University’s expanding campus to the redevelopment of Bader Field.

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“These are the kinds of projects and partnerships that show casinos can be powerful anchors — but only when they’re part of something bigger,” Mayor Small wrote.

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The publication in the New York Daily News marks a major moment for Atlantic City’s voice in the national conversation. It’s not just about defending the city’s gaming industry, which generates nearly $900 million annually in taxes and fees and supports more than 23,000 jobs. It’s about ensuring that any city, whether Atlantic City or New York, puts its people at the center of its growth strategy.

Mayor Small closed his op-ed with a reminder that resonates far beyond the Boardwalk: “Once the ribbon is cut and the headlines fade, the real work begins — and it will fall on the communities that live with these casinos long after the grand opening.”

Read the article on the New York Daily News on this link or below:

https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/08/15/nyc-casino-lessons-from-atlantic-city/

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