Even though I’ve never been to Blackpool, England, I’ve always had affinity for it–at least since I heard people describing it as the Atlantic City of the UK. Like AC, the city has had some bad beats in the past. Also like my hometown, it has been looking to casino gaming to rejuvenate it. But when it came time for the UK’s Casino Advisory Panel to select a site for the nation’s single super-casino, it was snake eyes for the casino resort. Many are in a state of shock. From Blackpool Online:

Amazement, anger, bewilderment – the list is endless when trying to describe the sense of feeling against what many see as a gross injustice.
“Blackpool had the best case, proved it and still lost” is a sentiment shared by a town in shock at the decision to award the lucrative prize to Manchester.
Our North West neighbours were, said the CAP, the best bet on all counts – for helping assist regeneration of a poor district and as the social impact test bed for Las Vegas-style glitz and gambling.
Not so, say MPs, council leaders and Gazette readers who today made an 11th hour appeal to Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell to think again ahead of the crucial Parliamentary vote on the matter.
Blackpool will lose millions in potential regeneration revenue by the decision to hand the one-and-only licence to a modern, cosmopolitan city already having benefited from £2bn of private sector investment in the last five years.
The reason for such strong support for Blackpool’s case locally comes from the 180-page CAP report – the same one which so publically damned the resort’s bid.
It stated the casino was not enough to boost Blackpool’s fortunes, would not be instrumental in its rebirth and claimed
Blackpool was not in terminal decline.
The Fylde’s four MPs have branded the Casino Advisory Panel report as littered with “inconsistencies” and “contradictions”.
They have accused the panel of missing the point when it came to assessing the “catalystic potential” of the super casino to trigger further massive investment in Blackpool.

Blackpool Today Blackpool news – Casino – a colossal blunder

I really feel for the people of Blackpool. The whole casino selection process strikes me as bizarre. Why not just let citizens of Blackpool vote in a referendum on whether they want casino gaming or not? Is that too much democracy? I guess it’s just a politico-cultural difference between the UK and the States.

If it’s any consolation, the first bid to get casinos legalized in Atlantic City failed as well.

Speaking of AC, I watched the Louis Malle movie Atlantic City last night. It was the first time that I’d seen it all the way through. I’ve got to say it’s an interesting depiction of the city circa 1980–I’m not sure how accurate it was (I was only 7 at the time). A few things rang true, a few rang false. It might be that movie audiences are much more sophisticated now, but the whole “stolen drug shipment” storyline didn’t seem very well thought out–not compared to True Romance, anyway. I was also a little bummed out that no one spoke with a real Philly/South Jersey accent. Still, it was nice seeing the old Resorts, and the old boards, and what I think was the inside of the Knife and Fork. I’ve got a feeling that if they’d shot a scene inside the Baltimore Grill, it would look pretty much the same today.

Someone who’s got a better memory of the city at the time of the shooting could answer this question: Is the apartment building where they all lived on the site of today’s Flagship? I kind of think so, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

One funny note: most of the vacant lots that you see in the movie are, after 27 years of “redevelopment,” still vacant.