Garden State loves Vegas?

Vegas marketing is so pernicious that even denizens of New Jersey, which boasts the casino capital of the East, Atlantic City, prefer flying to the desert to driving “down the shore.” But the guy in charge of marketing AC says that’s no problem.

From the Washington Post:

This seaside city has 12 casinos, a world-famous boardwalk and is about a half-day’s drive for the most distant state resident. Still, New Jerseyans prefer to do their gambling more than 2,000 miles away _ in Las Vegas, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The survey found that state residents preferred Vegas by a margin of more than 2-to-1. In also found that about 10 percent said they would stop going to Atlantic City if Philadelphia, New York City or the Catskills region of New York state had casinos.

Commissioned by the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and conducted by Zogby International between May 17 and 25, the poll contacted 1,001 randomly selected adults by telephone. It has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Jeffrey Vasser, executive director of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority, downplayed the finding, saying it was human nature for people to want to venture farther away, given the opportunity.

Poll: New Jerseyans Prefer Vegas Gambling

People want to venture farther away? Yeah, I know that I’d much prefer going through airport security and sitting in coach for 5 hours (only 4 coming back) to driving 2 hours in my own car. Because of that kind of denial, the city is in the shape its in.