The Showboat hotel-casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, boasts eight bars and restaurants, but none of them offers even a glimpse of the ocean just outside.

Like many of the other towering resorts situated on the famous Boardwalk, the Showboat’s eateries provide spectacular overviews of … the gaming floor.

Fortunately, a recent, handsome addition to the Boardwalk scene – the Pier Shops at Caesars – provides a chance to get views of the blue Atlantic along with your drinks and dinner.  The glamorous pier, built over the Million Dollar Pier that dates from 1906, flaunts eight restaurants on its top level, above 75 pricey boutiques.

The casinos have a not-so-secret plot to keep patrons’ focus indoors. The gaming lobby fought furiously for an exception to the otherwise comprehensive 2006 statewide ban on indoor smoking in public spaces. Operators apparently feared that any gambler who left the table for a smoke outdoors might come to his or her senses once the fresh air hit. (A city ordinance now limits smoking to 25 percent of the casino floors.)

They don’t even want you to hang out in your guest room. Mine was more than comfortable enough and priced at just $49 on an early-spring Wednesday. The same room would go for $409 a night on the following Friday.

But its TV displayed just 29 channels, a paltry number to many people in the target market. Its window overlooked the parking garage.

So to get a taste of A.C.’s legendary setting, I had to stroll along the mixed neighborhood of the Boardwalk. The Showboat is currently the northernmost casino, soon to be joined by Revel Entertainment’s 3,800-room resort, for which land has been cleared next door. This is about 10 blocks from the midtown palaces and the Pier Shops.

Instead of walking, I could have chosen a $2 jitney ride, a human-powered rolling chair (“prices vary”) or the Harrah’s bus, which loops among the company’s four hotels (free with a Total Rewards card).  But the walk made it easy to stop for a glass of wine and decadent appetizer at the memorabilia-filled Hard Rock Café (Elvis’ shirt, Kiss’ drum kit). Yes, the café did have windows on the water.

Next, I passed the no-longer-gleaming chrome doors of

Resorts, the city’s first casino (opened 1978). Music emanating from the various hotels and shops catered to an older crowd: “Dancing in the Dark,” “We Can Work It Out,” and “Lonely Girl.”

Much of the Boardwalk is as downscale as ever: tattoo parlors, psychic readers, and 99-cent souvenirs. On a quiet night, a considerable percentage of the denizens were homeless, and I repeatedly was asked for handouts.

One down-and-outer, in fact, caused a small uproar just as I arrived in the posh Pier Shops. An Apple Store manager caught him trying to disconnect a model iPhone from its security cable.

But the décor of the pier is what one would expect in a world-class attraction: glittering floors, moving clouds on ceilings and flowing streams of guests traversing the corridors and escalators. On the restaurant level, the southern wall is windowed and lined with Adirondack chairs in a faux beach scene. The sand covering the floor of the seating areas must be hard to keep in place, but the dune grasses and beach-erosion fences provide nice touches.

I ate at Philips Seafood, where the service was first-class and the king crab macaroni and cheese outdid your usual comfort food. The shrimp Caesar salad, however, was mediocre.

Weekends offer big-name entertainment — Jay Leno, Eric Clapton, Allison Kraus and Robert Plant are coming up. And better weather is ahead. That should be good for tourists who want to take in minor-league baseball or the marine mammal stranding center in nearby Brigantine.

But the big emphasis is on gambling, and the industry is not hedging its bets on Atlantic City. The old hotels are mostly gone. The Dennis is the only 19th-century hotel surviving as part of a gaming resort (Bally’s Atlantic City). But several of the resorts have rehabs or new towers under way. The Pinnacle is submitting designs for approval to build a multibillion-dollar hotel on the site of the former Sands.

Meanwhile, the gaming press reports a “lull” in slot-machine growth, and Las Vegas had a slowdown in all casino revenues in January 2008. I think the explanation for the slots’ slowdown is simple: It’s not nearly as much fun on the new machines, which neither take nor deliver jingling coins. Feeding in currency or a bar-coded ticket and getting back a balance statement feels less like play and more like the unfavorable ATM transaction it usually is.

Still, a trip to this historic resort can deliver scenery amid luxury – and for a bargain price if the visitor is clever.

Happy traveling!

Captions: 1. The handsome Pier Shops at Caesars offer eight restaurants and 75 pricey boutiques. 2. Artifacts abound at the Hard Rock Café, including this violin the Beatles used for the “White Album.” 3. A Taj Mahal  worker keeps his section of the Boardwalk spiffy. 4. Guests have an overview of the downtown beaches from Adirondack chairs on the third floor of the Pier Shops. 5. Several of the major hotels in Atlantic City have rehabs or new towers under way. Photography by Thomas Simonet.