Closest Casino Near Virginia Beach

With the closure of almost half of Atlantic City's casinos, Newark set to vote on gambling and casinos or racinos in almost every state, it seems as if the reasons for the very existence of Atlantic City are in serious jeopardy.
Israel Joffe
Atlantic City, once a major vacation spot during the roaring 20s and 1930s, as seen on HBOs Boardwalk Empire, collapsed when cheap air fare became the norm and people had no reason to head to the many beach town resorts on the East Coast. Within a few decades, the city, known for being an ‘oasis of sin’ during the prohibition era, fell into serious decline and dilapidation.
New Jersey officials felt the only way to bring Atlantic City back from the brink of disaster would be to legalize gambling. Atlantic City’s first casino, Resorts, first opened its doors in 1978. People stood shoulder to shoulder, packed into the hotel as gambling officially made its way to the East Coast. Folks in the East Coast didn't have to make a special trip all the way to Vegas in order to enjoy some craps, slots, roulette and more.
As time wore on, Atlantic City became the premier gambling spots in the country.
While detractors felt that the area still remained poor and dilapidated, officials were quick to point out that the casinos didn't bring the mass gentrification to Atlantic City as much as they hoped but the billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs for the surrounding communities was well worth it.
Atlantic City developed a reputation as more of a short-stay ‘day-cation’ type of place, yet managed to stand firm against the 'adult playground' and 'entertainment capital of the world' Las Vegas.
Through-out the 1980s, Atlantic City would become an integral part of American pop culture as a place for east coast residents to gamble, watch boxing, wrestling, concerts and other sporting events.
However in the late 1980s, a landmark ruling considered Native-American reservations to be sovereign entities not bound by state law. It was the first potential threat to the iron grip Atlantic City and Vegas had on the gambling and entertainment industry.
Huge 'mega casinos' were built on reservations that rivaled Atlantic City and Vegas. In turn, Vegas built even more impressive casinos.
Atlantic City, in an attempt to make the city more appealing to the ‘big whale’ millionaire and billionaire gamblers, and in effort to move away from its ‘seedy’ reputation, built the luxurious Borgata casino in 2003. Harrah’s created a billion dollar extension and other casinos in the area went through serious renovations and re-branded themselves.
It seemed as if the bite that the Native American casinos took out of AC and Vegas’ profits was negligible and that the dominance of those two cities in the world of gambling would remain unchallenged.
Then Macau, formally a colony of Portugal, was handed back to the Chinese in 1999. The gambling industry there had been operated under a government-issued monopoly license by Stanley Ho's Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau. The monopoly was ended in 2002 and several casino owners from Las Vegas attempted to enter the market.
Under the one country, two systems policy, the territory remained virtually unchanged aside from mega casinos popping up everywhere. All the rich ‘whales’ from the far east had no reason anymore to go to the United States to spend their money.
Then came the biggest threat.
As revenue from dog and horse racing tracks around the United States dried up, government officials needed a way to bring back jobs and revitalize the surrounding communities. Slot machines in race tracks started in Iowa in 1994 but took off in 2004 when Pennsylvania introduced ‘Racinos’ in an effort to reduce property taxes for the state and to help depressed areas bounce back.
As of 2013, racinos were legal in ten states: Delaware, Louisiana, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia with more expected in 2015.
Tracks like Delaware Park and West Virginia's Mountaineer Park, once considered places where local degenerates bet on broken-down nags in claiming races, are now among the wealthiest tracks around, with the best races.
The famous Aqueduct race track in Queens, NY, once facing an uncertain future, now possesses the most profitable casino in the United States.
From June 2012 to June 2013, Aqueduct matched a quarter of Atlantic City's total gaming revenue from its dozen casinos: $729.2 million compared with A.C.'s $2.9 billion. It has taken an estimated 15 percent hit on New Jersey casino revenue and climbing.
And it isn't just Aqueduct that's taking business away from them. Atlantic City's closest major city, Philadelphia, only 35-40 minutes away, and one of the largest cities in America, now has a casino that has contributed heavily to the decline in gamers visiting the area.
New Jersey is the third state in the U.S. to have authorized internet gambling. However, these online casinos are owned and controlled by Atlantic City casinos in an effort to boost profits in the face of fierce competition.
California, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Texas are hoping to join Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey and the U.S. Virgin Islands in offering online gambling to their residents.
With this in mind, it seems the very niche that Atlantic City once offered as a gambling and entertainment hub for east coast residents is heading toward the dustbin of history.
Time will tell if this city will end up like Detroit. However, the fact that they are losing their biggest industry to major competition, much like Detroit did, with depressed housing, casinos bankrupting/closing and businesses fleeing , it all makes Atlantic City’s fate seem eerily similar.

I don't want to give too much personal information, but I went to school with Francis. We ran in different crowds, but I was friends with some of her friends. Still kind of keep in touch with some of those girls.
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A friend of hers made a facebook page and invited me to it right when she first went missing. And then it was called, "Find Francis Wartenburg" but after they found her body it became a page of love and mourning and support for the family. It is very haunting for me that this is still unsolved. And I don't know if anybody in WV is even still working on it, but please if you are or you know someone and you have an update, people would really love to know.
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The story itself is just bizarre. When it first happened, Francis just up and disappeared. And left her phone behind which was not like her, according to close friends. I think it was winter and in St. Albans was when and where she first came up missing and nobody was able to find her. And her mother was distraught and her friends and her brother and her daughter.
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And then it became a week. And then a month. And finally they found the body in Ohio but nothing ever came of it, save her family and friends could finally mourn her properly.
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So here I am! Thinking about her in the dark of winter and wondering if anyone has any light to shine!
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Though she struggled with her thoughts and the habits meant to ease them, friends and family will always miss their beloved mom, daughter, co-worker and companion.
Wednesday marked two years since then 33-year-old Frances Wartenburg, of Winfield, disappeared from the town of Jefferson. Authorities found her body in early May 2015, stuck in a tree on the Ohio River in Gallia County, Ohio.
The circumstances surrounding her death remain a mystery.
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Heather Lovejoy, 35, met Wartenburg at Winfield Middle School where they were students. Lovejoy remembers joining her on a camping trip to Virginia Beach when they were teenagers. They walked down blocks of stores and tourist attractions, stopping to enjoy a haunted house or take pictures behind a cutout of bikini-clad figures. Lovejoy wanted to get an eyebrow piercing during the trip but knew her brother wouldn’t approve. Wartenburg got one anyway.
Decades later, the friends worked together at a Carrabba’s Italian Grill in North Carolina. Whether it was a shift at the restaurant or a major life event, they always looked out for each other. When Lovejoy found out she was pregnant, Wartenburg was there. When her mom passed away in 2015, Wartenburg was there. Lovejoy not only lost a friend — she lost the friend who usually comforted her in times of uncertainty.
“Then you start to think about your own mortality,” she said. “I can’t articulate into words how I felt.”
Lovejoy no longer lived in West Virginia and, for the most part, she was consumed with her own life when Wartenburg first disappeared. She was a quiet woman and would probably reappear at some point, Lovejoy said. Still, she prayed as friends and family in West Virginia held a bake sale and distributed missing posters.
The call came from Lovejoy’s brother: they found Wartenburg’s body. Lovejoy lost her best friend in the very state she calls home. As a mother of three daughters and a son, it shook her even more.
“She’s Frances Ann Wartenburg. A lot of people loved her and they still do, and they haven’t forgot about her,” she said.
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Jennifer Short met Wartenburg and Lovejoy at the same middle school in 1994.
Much like Wartenburg’s other loved ones, Short described her friend as sweet and good-natured. She was also “painfully shy.”
Short said her last words to Wartenburg were likely not kind. They worked together as cocktail waitresses in Nitro at the Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center, now called Mardi Gras Casino and Resort. After work they retired to their home atop a big hill.
The problem, Short said, was Wartenburg had a drug habit that pushed a wedge between them. The habit even lost Wartenburg a career in the U.S. Army, Short said.
“It was very difficult for me to know that she died thinking nobody cared about her,” she said.
The thing to remember, she said, is Wartenburg never hurt anyone but herself. Her closest friends and family could see through the substance abuse and into her loving, bubbly character.
That’s why on March 18, 2015, Short made the Facebook group “Find Frances Wartenburg,” where members could share updates and collaborate.
Loved ones still use the page for support and to wish Wartenburg well each birthday and holiday.
Though their friendship was strained, Wartenburg’s disappearance took hold of Short’s very sanity. The mystery affected everything: her online classes with West Virginia University, a nursing job in Los Angeles and even her marriage.
“My entire point of being was finding Frances,” Short said.
Several charity events resulted in the creation of a missing-person billboard, Short said. The advertising company returned the money after Wartenburg’s body was found days later, she said.
Detective Ana Pile of the Kanawha County Sheriff’s office said the investigation is not considered a “cold case” because it’s not yet clear how she died. Details are largely still kept from the public so the case is not harmed if it becomes a criminal investigation, she said.
Lovejoy and Short are convinced someone killed their friend. Anyone with information about Wartenburg or other unsolved cases can contact the sheriff’s office’s tip line at 304-357-4693 or on the office’s website.
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There is always hope a dead case will find new life.
Lt. Danny Swiger, who worked on unsolved cases from 2001 to 2009 for the West Virginia State Police, once solved an investigation that was nearly 20 years old.
Swiger had an interest in cases that had no perpetrator, and he took it upon himself to investigate.
The case began Feb. 7, 1991, when a father left his home in the Bruceton Mills-Brandonville community, according to Gazette-Mail archives. A man entered the home and raped the father’s 12-year-old daughter in her own bed.
Swiger used DNA stored since 1991 to clear five suspects and arrest a sixth man named Marshall Wolfe, according to the archives. A judge sentenced him to at least 10 years in prison.
“It’s a very touchy subject at times, but when we can resolve something, man it’s a good feeling,” Swiger said.
He was later reassigned to investigate the sexual exploitation of children, and Swiger now serves State Police as the director of its Crimes Against Children Unit.
Evolving technology allowed Swiger to solve the case, and novel tools remain one of the greatest sources of hope in unsolved cases, he said.
New information is another constant possibility. Swiger said people may reveal more about a case if they mature or feel guilty years later. Changed dynamics in a relationship may also increase someone’s willingness to speak up.
The greatest obstacle to solving a case, he said, is the shortage of staff at many agencies. And with piles of evidence and a high rate of turnover in the forensic laboratory, unsolved cases can often take a back seat to recent crimes.
Swiger said there is no database of how many unsolved cases exist in West Virginia, so it’s hard to know how many exist at each agency.
When they have time, Swiger encourages troopers at his agency to take on a case of their own. It’s a project with many dead ends and moments of disappointment, but there is always hope.
“One of the hardest things I always had and struggled with is you feel like, at times, you gave some of the families undue hope. You had to be very careful as an investigator that you didn’t make promises you couldn’t keep,” Swiger said. “I try to be mindful of that. But you know, you become attached to some of these folks.”

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https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/cops_and_courts/two-years-later-woman-s-death-remains-unsolved/article_dc96e88e-d973-50e2-ae98-66df2f5169e7.html