Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

It has been part of the fabric of Manhattan's Chinatowns for many years.

Thousands of Chinese regularly head down to Atlantic City on the Jersey Shore for a night of gambling in some of its casinos. It may be at the end of a night shift at a restaurant and ahead of a rare day off, it may have been after a morning delivering produce to the fruit and vegetable sellers or the fish shops, or it may be a pensioner wanting to benefit from the vouchers for free buffets often provided by some casinos.

But the phenomenon is under threat. Atlantic City is facing a crisis. Four of its 12 casinos have closed this year, or are about to close as competition from new rivals closer to the big nearby catchment areas like New York and Philadelphia eats into Atlantic City's market share.

The Atlantic Club Casino closed early in the year. Then Caesars Entertainment Corp decided it was pulling the plug on the Showboat Casino at the end of the summer, soon followed by an announcement from the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino that it was shutting in September.

Finally, the Revel, a massive complex that only opened in 2012, went into bankruptcy for a second time and then failed to find a buyer. It will shut on Monday.

The casino industry's revenues in the city have fallen by almost half since 2006, and there is a real danger that an already struggling Atlantic City is going to deteriorate rapidly.

Revel, a 52-storey gambling palace, may have a feng shui problem. The project got hammered by the financial crisis, leading to the first bankruptcy filing.

Its design has been heavily criticized - only one of two towers planned was ever built, and as a result the vast casino floor doesn't feel like it is busy enough.

Its location is at the northern end of the boardwalk, away from most of the other casinos. There is a possibility that it may stay empty for some time - at the very least it will have to be converted into another use, perhaps high-end condos.

That may be hopeful. The wider Atlantic City landscape is going to be mauled by the closures. At least 8,000 and possibly as many as 10,000 jobs have been lost at the casinos. And the city's revenues will take a big hit, which is likely to force the city to cut services, including potentially the size of its police force.

Atlantic City's jobless and poverty rates are already well above national averages, and the crime rate is also high. There have been some horrific murders of visitors and those who serviced them.

Four prostitutes were found dead in a drainage ditch in 2006. And in 2012, two women from Canada - a mother and a daughter - were stabbed to death in the tourist district during a daytime robbery.

Many Chinese - who worked as card dealers and in other jobs - lost their jobs in the series of casino closures.

Now, they, and some of their former customers are heading to other casinos in the region, and leaving Atlantic City.

Some are heading to the Resort World Casino in Queens, New York City, which opened in 2011 and offers Baccarat, Craps, Roulette and slot machines. Other options are at the Native American-owned Foxwoods complex in New London, Connecticut, or at casinos that have opened in places like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And there are many more to come in states around the northeast, as cash-strapped governments find casinos to be a very tempting source of revenue.

To be sure, the writing had been on the wall for a while. There was a time when Atlantic City could get all the top Cantopop stars from Hong Kong to play gigs there - but no more. There are no top Chinese pop stars due to come to the city this year - the potential audiences aren't big enough to get the casinos to front up the costs.

This is all a reminder to governments in Asia that there are only so many high and low rollers around. Macao has become the world's casino capital in the past 20 years, taking over from Las Vegas, but there is always a danger it is going to overexpand. And it is facing new competition from a host of Asian neighbors.

The author is a New York-based journalist. rong_xiaoqing@hotmail.com