After Eight Months Of Reporting, Gambling Paper Can Confirm The Casino Has No Clocks
Eight months of floor plans, purchase orders and interviews point to the same conclusion. So does looking at the wall.
ATLANTIC CITY. The gaming floor of the Bellwether Grand holds 2,300 slot machines, 140 table games, four bars and no clocks, a Gambling Paper investigation can reveal after eight months of reporting, three public records requests and a great deal of looking around.
The findings rest on architectural drawings for the 2009 renovation, fifteen years of purchase orders and interviews with eleven current and former staff, one of whom asked not to be named because, she said, “it is embarrassing that you needed me for this.”
How we established it
- February: a reporter walked the floor for six hours and found no clocks, but could not say for certain how long six hours had been.
- April: drawings obtained from the city show sixty-one wall fixtures, each marked “ART (NOT CLOCK)”.
- June: purchase orders list carpet, mirrors and 4,000 bulbs in a shade described as “permanent early evening”. No clocks.
- August: a former maintenance worker recalled being told to remove a clock a guest had brought in, and putting it in a drawer “where time is allowed.”
- October: the reporter checked again, just in case.
It is embarrassing that you needed me for this.
Right of reply
A spokesman for the Bellwether Grand said the casino “does not believe guests come here to be reminded of anything,” and pointed out that every phone already shows the time, which is why the casino has also removed the phone signal from the high-limit room.
Correction: An earlier version of this article said there were no clocks anywhere in the Bellwether Grand. There is one, in the staff room. It runs eleven minutes slow.
