For an entertainer, a casino gig is a double-edged sword. It can be a lucrative booking, a sign that you’ve entered a rarefied tier of bankability. But casino crowds can be tough: they’re often filled with inebriated people who are frustrated from losing money, people on a broad quest to be entertained, rather than diehard fans. Last month, the comic Matt Rife played four nights at the Ocean Casino Resort, in Atlantic City, New Jersey—a place he describes as “like if Vegas had a zombie apocalypse.” Rife has an unusually gruelling touring schedule, and he likes to assign letter grades to each show. “Tonight was fine. I would give it a B-minus, maybe,” he told me, sitting in the quiet greenroom on the first night of the run. “I knew halfway through, when certain things weren’t getting the response they usually do, that it was just that kind of crowd.”
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