The semiotics on the boardwalk in Atlantic City is crucial to the understanding of this city’s success.  Semiotics, in its most simple form, is the analysis of signs and signals.  With every step on the boardwalk, people are bombarded with these signs and signals.  Even upon entrance to the city, people are dominated by the neon lights from every casino and the name Trump on three of the twelve casinos.  On the boardwalk, it is less about Trump and more about what you see next.  The strip is designed for a person who only has a few dollars left on them after they have spent all their cash.  There is an abundance of one-dollar shops, and cheap souvenir shops between casinos.  They even have amusement park rides on the strip, for vacationers’ kids who are not able to gamble. 

            The consumers that are targeted here are the tourists, wealth tourists, who have taken the time to visit the area.  For the local in the area, they know the casinos are just for fun and the shops on the strip sell budget merchandise that is overpriced.  The visitor does not know this.  All they see is the flashing lights and neon signs that say to them “this is a one time thing, spend your money now or regret it later.”  They’ll probably regret it later, but they go there for an experience unique to any other.  The businesses on the strip are nothing to how the casinos see business.

The casinos have every light blazing and every theme to pull the consumer in.  There is the “Wild West” where employees walk around with cowboy hats and string ties, signifying the richest people in the west.  Caesars Palace places you in ancient Rome, where you automatically correlate togas with winning.  Finally, there are Trump’s kingdoms, all of which are the most elaborate sights you will see on the strip.  Trump decks out his casinos in marble, with pillars clad in smoky mirrors, and huge elaborate chandeliers.  In Atlantic City, it is all about what you see and what you are willing to give the casino because they have shown you their palace.  This is how they get you in, by showing you fantasies and the marvels of construction.

Once they are in the casino it is a totally different story.  They enter a palace in which there are tons of things to do, all of which all dig deeper and deeper into your pocket.  You can play “games,” games with higher stakes of course.  It is just a game: it is not whether you win or lose it is how you play, right?  You do not need to know how to play, you just need to have cash, and the dealers are more than willing to tell you what to do next.  If you are not a gamer, you can go over to the flashy nightclub with a huge line of supermodels waiting outside, to make you think that that is the place where everybody wants to go.  Right behind the line is a bar where customers can overpay for drinks while hoping the line gets smaller.  Even the special shows in the casinos draw you in.  Boxing matches and special performers you have heard of but never seen, are all part of drawing you in.

The sign values in Atlantic City are crucial to the exchange value in this city.  Maybe because it is one of the few places you can legally gamble the city would still be successful.  But the fact that all of these signs bombard you from all sides there is a much greater exchange value by its visitors.  If people did not see extravagant buildings, people winning money, and a long line to get in the posh nightclub, business would not be as profitable.  But this is what they do, so you see it and will be drawn to it. 

Everything you see in the casino is designed to make you think you are missing out if you do not have the cash, or even do not want to spend the cash.  The signifiers are huge, dominating buildings with fantastical signs to draw you in.  This is signified as a place where you may possibly go home a winner.  This is what the city wants people to think, that they are there hoping to get lucky.  Some get lucky, but that is not the issue for the casino, it is whether or not they actually came and tried to get lucky.  This is why everything on the boardwalk is where it is, to draw people in and provide the feeling and an experience unlike any other.  As far as the casinos are concerned, if it does not stand out more than the next guys, they just lost a customer.  

The semiotics here is meant to bring outsiders to the city, so the city will make more money.  But where does the money go?  It does not go into the city that is in dire need of it.  For the past thirty years, the city has not been about reconstruction, rather bringing back those that fueled the city, the tourists.  By legalizing gambling, they brought back the people who put money into its economy.  If it takes the tackiest buildings, neon lights, and billboards from one end of the city to the other, than that is what needed to be done.