The boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, looks like a forgotten film set. Scant tourists look in vain for its Prohibition-era glory. The windows of the Central Pier Arcade are grey with dirt. The nearby Trump Plaza stands empty. Snarkier non-residents call the town “America’s armpit”.

But Franco Guerrero, who has worked in Atlantic City’s casinos for 29 years, says that after dark days following the 2008 recession, the town — its resorts and railroad once the inspiration for the US version of the Monopoly board game — has new hope courtesy of the legalisation of one activity: sports betting.

“A lot of people lost a lot of money and they moved out . . . but now there are more jobs and opportunities,” says Mr Guerrero. He moved from one of the boardwalk’s oldest surviving casinos, Harrah’s, to work at the Hard Rock resort’s sportsbook — the US answer to a bookmaker’s shop but with big live sports screens and alcohol on sale — which opened in June last year.