Spend any time at all with those who populate Atlantic City's gambling industry, and the sense that the sky is falling is unavoidable. But more objective eyes may question this assessment.

Obviously things are, financially speaking, the worst they've ever been in the 30 years of legal casino gaming in Atlantic City. And the results are tragic, with thousands of workers unemployed already, and more, sadly on the way. But let's take a look at the October numbers released today by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission:

While the bad news is that gaming revenue last month was down 9.9 percent versus Oct., '07, that number appears to be a lot less horrible than was predicted. Both last night at 11 and today at noon, Action News anchors and reporters were beating their gums--in a typical the-sky-is-falling manner--about expectations that the revenue drop would be even worse than September's 15 percent tumble.

More bad news: For the first 10 months of 2008, total casino revenue is down 6.6 percent from the same period in 2007. But look at it this way: The 11 casinos still took in $3.9 billion. Even in these lousy times, that's serious money, no? People still want to gamble--and gambol--in AyCee. And they probably will continue to do so, albeit not at the levels seen when the town had the east-of-the-Mississippi gambling monopoly.

The point is, panic will not fix anything down there, only make things worse than they already are. And maybe, just maybe, if everyone steps back and takes a deep breath, things might not seem quite as awful as they do right now. And in the casino realm as in life, perception is reality.

SOME THINGS DON'T CHANGE: It's been 20 years since New Kids On The Block first set little girls' hearts aflame, but the ensuing decades have apparently done little to douse that ardor.

We hear that after their Borgata gig Friday night, the quintet of no-longer Kids partied awhile at the mixx disco before heading over to the casino floor for some quality time with Lady Luck. But when the now-grown-up female fans spotted the group members, all hell broke loose and security was called upon to quell what might have been a full-scale riot.