A Chinatown bank teller accused of stealing $243,000 from his Chase branch and going on an Atlantic City casino binge was arraigned in court yesterday. Sephoen Tsang, 22, pleaded not guilty to five counts of grand larceny and falsifying business records. Tsang, who was arrested playing the baccarat tables in Atlantic City, allegedly left a note for his former supervisor apologizing for the theft: “Sorry, Betty. Take care.” more ›

A nun who embezzled $850K from Iona college and threw it all into Atlantic City's slot machines was given a lenient sentence by a Manhattan judge last week. According to the Post, Judge Kimba Wood gave Sister Marie Thornton—known as Sister Susie—2,000 hours of community service and three years probation instead of three years in federal prison. We knew Sister Act was a bad influence on the Church. more ›

The Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City is facing some serious fines this week after a 14-year-old boy was caught playing the slots, right under the not-so-watchful eye of the casino's security guards. more ›

Atlantic City police thought they were dealing with a normal marijuana bust when they raided an alleged drug dealer’s home Friday. They seized a pound of weed, a gun, hollow point bullets, and money which they believe is profit from the suspect's pot-dealing business. Oh, and they also found two pet alligators. more ›

Under the threat of Hurricane Irene, Atlantic City casinos have shut down for the third time in history, really pissing off that crowded tour bus full of exhausted-looking people and your uncle Lonny, who was due for a big score at the Pai-Gow table. All 11 casinos in town were closed by the governor's order, and hotel guests were only permitted to stay if they had no means of evacuating. more ›

Have you spent the past decade wondering whatever became of Sinatra-loving former SNL-er Joe Piscopo? No? What about ukelele-playing-SNLer-turned-Obama-citizenship-conspiracy-theorist Victoria Jackson? Not her either? Well, tough bananas! Because the two of them are teaming up for what is surely the saddest pseudo-SNL reunion show ever. more ›

While Atlantic City's Resorts Casino Hotel has Club Piscopo, which, yes, means you can see Joe Piscopo, it also is home to Prohibition, very possibly the "first full-time gay bar at any big American casino." The casino's CEO Dennis Gomes told the NY Times, "I feel like I’m doing something that needs to be done, but it’s perfect because the right thing to do is the lucrative thing to do, too." Word. more ›

A Philadelphia man is using Atlantic City not as a pleasant vacation destination, what with their pristine beaches and friendly locals, but as a lucrative money making scheme. The Post reports that 49-year-old Don Johnson has netted $15 million from Caesars, The Borgata, and The Tropicana, by playing blackjack. Johnson told the paper "I'll take luck over any other skill." We assume he's referring to the "luck" involved in counting how many cards there are in an auto-shuffle. more ›

Charlie Sheen's dud of a torpedo is still fizzling into the city's papers. Today the Daily News reports that a heckler at the Atlantic City show on Saturday night shamed the MaSheen into giving him a refund. While watching the fallen actor incoherently grasp for the audience's attention, Zach Edelman heckled him from 20 rows back (after being denied a refund at the box office). Sheen eventually beckoned him to the stage, handed him a $100 bill, and said, "There's your fucking refund. Now you can get the f--- out of here." more ›

Either the Resorts Casino Hotel just can't catch a break, or they're really going out of their way to get some publicity: last month, they stirred up a small brouhaha over a billboard sign they erected over the Atlantic City Expressway featuring a finely photoshopped derriere. Now, the flailing Atlantic City hotel is being sued by seven former employees who claim the resort fired middle-aged cocktail servers to make room for younger women who looked better in skimpy, sexy outfits. more ›

In this day and age of Vodka owners who put bikini-butt ads featuring their own daughter's derriere on the back of a fleet of NYC buses, is anyone really that scandalized by a semi-naked caboose anymore? A few vocal commuters are upset over the Resorts Casino Hotel's billboard advertising their show "Moonshine Follies," and want it to be removed from eyesight. The ad, which features a finely-photoshopped rear end covered by nothing but a few strings of beads, can be found on the Atlantic City Expressway, over a NJ Transit train station. And Casino owner Dennis Gomes doesn't get the big fuss: "I've got five kids and they've seen butts all their lives and they all turned out fine," he said. more ›

NJ Governor Chris Christie is delivering on his promises to shake things up in the Garden State: The Star-Ledger reported yesterday he was poised to announce an "unprecedented overhaul of New Jersey’s troubled gaming industry Wednesday — including a complete takeover of the Atlantic City casino and entertainment district, and the sell-off or shutdown of the struggling Meadowlands Racetrack." FYI: Taking over Atlantic City includes taking over police protection and garbage pickup and, for the Meadowlands take over, race tracks could be closed (hello, Nascar?) and the ugly Xanadu wall might go! more ›

A Sun Lee bus from Chinatown headed to Atlantic City was involved in a crash yesterday morning on Route 40. Police say that the bus driver was ejected from the bus and then run over by the bus: Sgt. Monica McMenamin said, "He went through the windshield, and at this point, we've got a ghost driver, with the bus continuing on without anyone at the wheel. The bus continued on and drove over him." more ›

A man and a woman have been arrested for kidnapping a man in Atlantic City last week, even though the victim has yet to be found. Martin Caballero disappeared after dropping off his family at the Taj Mahal casino last Friday, but never returned after leaving to park his car in the garage. His car was later found torched in Camden County. more ›

Brooklyn native Seyit Ibrahim Yel has allegedly conned casinos across the country out of over $500,000 by using comped chips to bet at the blackjack table. However, no one has been able to sue him because he is nowhere to be found. Yel and a group of other con men somehow tricked casinos into thinking he was a 35-year-old businessman named Mustafa Seda, and within weeks of beginning a gambling spree in 2008 he was traveling on private jets and staying in complimentary suites paid for by big casinos. more ›

After a cell phone-coordinated food fight broke out in an Atlantic City high school cafeteria on Tuesday, the punishment was swift and simple: workers offered students only cheese sandwiches for the next two days. Parents (okay, one kid's mom) were outraged: "It's a prison meal," declared Bridgitte Reid of the Press of Atlantic City. "There’s nothing on this. No mayo, no nothing. It’s disgusting." Reid says her daughter didn't throw any food, and objects to the collective punishment. But school district superintendent Fredrick Nickles explains, "It’s been the policy of the school board for many years that if there is a food-throwing incident, what occurs is we will supply the basic food requirement. It's been effective over the years." Which is surprising, because American cheese is arguably the most aerodynamic of cheeses. more ›

Feds have busted a Park Slope anesthesiologist accused of writing Adderall prescriptions for phony patients, who filled them and sold the study drug on the streets. The doctor, Michael Hosny Gabriel, may have used his profits to fund a gambling habit. He “carried large sums of cash to Atlantic City” one informant told the Feds, adding that the medical man kept a gun in his bedroom. And though Dr. Gabriel was the Adderall ring's kingpin, he had help: the Daily News says other doctors at his Brooklyn hospital are also implicated in the case. more ›

Following videotape that was released of a bouncer beatdown outside of Jay-Z's 40/40 club in Atlantic City recently, several bouncers that were involved have been fired. Couri Glen, the former supervisor of security at the club, told TMZ: "We were initially all suspended and then fired for misconduct." He and his team feel they were wrongly terminated, saying they were just doing their jobs by escorting the men out of the club. Even if they men did take a swing at some of the security team, however, it still looks like the team went a little too far retaliating. more ›

Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan has seen some trouble in the past, but nothing compared to what his Atlantic City branch is about to see. His club's security beat down two patrons over the weekend, and of course it was caught on tape (by DJ Zeke who performed at the club that night): more ›

Authorities investigating the fatal fall of a New York hedge fund executive from an Atlantic City shopping center escalator say that the incident was an "accident." NJ resident James Vellanti had been on an escalator at the Pier Shops at Caesars on Saturday when he somehow fell. The Press of Atlantic City reports, "The escalator from which Vellanti fell travels from the third to the second floor. Frank Gilbert Jr., of Galloway Township, fell from the same one in August 2008, after witnesses said he sat on the handrail." more ›

A NJ man fell to his death from an escalator at Atlantic City's Pier at Caesars shopping center. According to the Press of Atlantic City, the victim, James Vellanti, was "chief operating officer for the hedge fund JNF Asset Management LLC in New York." The police are investigating the incident, which is the second fatal fall there in 13 months (last year, a 25-year-old man was sitting on the moving escalator's handrail and fell to his death). more ›

Chef Wolfgang Puck opened Spago in LA back in 1982, and, to this day, it remains the prototypical Hollywood hotspot. The chef, originally from Austria, later went on to open the steakhouse Cut (replete with celebrity headshot menus for the celebrity diners), Chinois, an Asian fusion restaurant in Santa Monica, and myriad other fine dining and casual restaurants nationwide. Yet he's still largely an unknown entity to New Yorkers, unless they make a jaunt down to his American Grille in the stellar Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City. more ›

An underage gambler has cost the Atlantic City Hilton Casino over $115,000—the second-largest fine for underage gambling in the city's 31-year history of casino gaming. (Last year Bally's Atlantic City was slapped with a record-setting $157,500 fine for letting an underage customer gamble; the legal age there is 21.) The Hilton's teenage gambler, identified only as "M.R." by the gaming commission, was granted a player's account at the Hilton in 2007 and even given a free room. He was 19 at the time, but gave fake identification indicating he was 24. During the next 16 months, "M.R." traveled repeatedly to A.C. from Brooklyn, and in February 2008, he was arrested at a different casino for underage gambling. Still, the Hilton didn't know his real age until April 2008, when the Gaming Enforcement Division found a record for "M.R." at the Hilton, and notified the casino. But the next day, the casino permitted him to gamble some more, for nearly three hours. Linda Kassekert, chairwoman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, tells the AP, "We have a big concern about it because kids can make themselves look older, and that's problematic." Especially if they get lucky. more ›

A jury found Staten Island resident Rafael Pichardo guilty of aggravated assault for a 2007 incident where he bit off an Atlantic City cop's left index finger. According to the Star-Ledger, the cops were called the Casbah Nightclub at the Trump Taj Mahal, because, per witnesses, "Pichardo had become unruly. Pichardo bit through the officer's leather glove after the policemen tried to handcuff him." Yowch! Also: "A bouncer put Dooley's severed finger on ice, but doctors were unable to reattach it because of the extent of the damage." Pichardo's family and friends apparently yelled after the verdict was announced. His sentencing will be in July and he faces up to 10 years in jail. Update: We belatedly remembered another Staten Islander who likes the taste of gloved finger—Staten Island Chuck! more ›

Last Friday, Donald Trump resigned from the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts, which operates Trump's Atlantic City casinos and just happens to face bankruptcy. Trump told Bloomberg News, "I have nothing to do with it. I’m not in it, I’m not on the board." Trump, whose daughter Ivanka also quit the board, controlled 28% of the stock and said he offered to buy the flagging company, but bondholders refused. The Financial Times says the group has "$1.7bn of debt, of which about $1.2bn is bond debt." Trump also claims that the casinos' value is "worthless" to him, representing less than one per cent of his net worth. Remember, The Donald is rich—previously, Trump excoriated Rosie O'Donnell for saying he filed for personal bankruptcy. more ›

Free chocolates and Atlantic City hotel reservations are being handed out at the corner of 48th Street and Sixth Avenue until 10 a.m. this morning, and then from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. at the Jacques Torres Hudson Store (350 Hudson). The hotel is Harrah's, and we're told they're distributing 5,000 free overnight stays to publicize the Sunday opening of a café called Temptations that will feature most of the Jacques Torres product line. (Torres has been answering NY Times readers' questions this week, and has revealed the secret to his dangerously addictive chocolate chip cookies.) In other V-Day gimmicks, three couples will be competing in the Netflix "Greatest Kiss" contest at Grand Central this morning. On sets built to resemble the movies, they'll be performing kiss-culminating scenes from Titanic, Gone With the Wind, and the incestuous mom/son kiss from Back to the Future. We're told a panel of judges will rate the "amateur kissers," and the awkwardness begins at 11:30. more ›

Earlier this year it was announced that a Hamptons for Hipsters was about to take shape in Atlantic City, courtesy of the Beatrice Inn boys Paul Sevigny and Matt Abramcyk. The two have taken their aesthetic and transferred it over to The Chelsea's 5th floor, which houses a game room, several lounges, a pool, patios and a restaurant. But you know what they say: you can't take the New Jersey out of Atlantic City. more ›