Reports
US MARKET: NEIGHBOURHOOD CASINOS
Stuffing and cooking the Golden Goose
As New Jersey’s neighbours flaunt their newly acquired gaming facilities via their home grown slot and casino operations, the state’s once thriving casino gaming monopoly, Atlantic City, is frantically trying to hang on to the Golden Gaming Goose.
As the first city outside of Nevada to provide gambling, Atlantic City was at one time New Jersey’s largest tourist attraction supplying both beach and entertainment side by side on the East Coast.
But lately casino revenues in both Nevada and New Jersey have been dwindling. Atlantic City has seen hard times over the last few years and five of the city’s 12 casinos closed between 2013 and 2016, whilst the unemployment rate is 7.1 per cent, well above the national average of five per cent, and its mortgage foreclosure rate is said to be America’s highest.
Atlantic City opened its doors to legal gambling back in 1976 and the New Jersey Casino Control Act was signed in 1977. Of course the history of gambling in Atlantic City dates back to the early
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1900s on its historic Boardwalk and the region is synonymous with gambling.
LEGISLATION IS THE CATALYST Te legislation sought to rebuild the resort town
and in 1978 Resorts International Casino opened. Legalising gambling was a bold attempt to bring more tourists to the area and major operators such as Caesars, Ballys and Harrahs all followed suit and Atlantic City grew rapidly as a gambling destination resort. For the next 20 years or so the area boomed. In 1989 a report showed revenues of $2.73bn compared to revenues in Vegas the same year which reached $1.94bn by comparison.
By 1990 Trump owned three of the 12 Atlantic City casinos whilst casino revenues increased topping the $4.2bn mark in the year 2000.
A few years of buying, selling and closing casinos ensued, but by 2004 Trump’s reign over the Atlantic City casino industry had ended though casino revenues would continued to rise, peaking in the mid-2000s.
In 2003, the Borgata Casino opened – a new style hotel and casino that brought a new image to the city. It was hailed as the ‘game changer’ and took the crown from the Taj Mahal as revenue king in 2005. By 2006, the City’s gaming revenues hit $5.2bn, but then the revenues began to drop. Fast forward to 2016 and revenues had fallen by more than 50 per cent since the 2006 peak and casinos began to close their doors.
Firstly, Atlantic Club Casino Hotel (previously known as the Golden Nugget, Bally’s Grand,
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