Atlantic City’s casino industry is going through a tough time and it is not getting over for them as it continues month after month. October was yet another depressing month for the casino industry here with another casino going out of the business and adding more to the woes. With the closure of Trump Taj Mahal which got shut down on Oct.10 things became bad to worse with more people getting unemployed and even casino industry facing a big crunch. However, the interesting part is that even with this closure the seven surviving casinos saw their revenue increase by nearly 6 percent compared with a year earlier. With Trump Taj Mahal’s closure, Atlantic City’s casinos saw their revenue decline in October by less than 1 percent compared to October 2015. Now with Taj Mahal excluded the remaining casinos saw their revenue increase by 5.9 percent.
Matt Levinson, chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission said; “For the year, the seven operating casinos are up by 3.1 percent,” “I anticipate the operators will continue to focus on improving their business in Atlantic City.”
The remaining eight casinos in Atlantic City that operated for at least part of the month in October won $203 million which was down 0.7 percent from October 2015. Thus internet gambling was on rising in New Jersey bringing in $16.6 million in October which is up nearly 30 percent from a year ago. As per the results the largest monthly increase was posted by the Golden Nugget which was up by 16.7 percent to $20.6 million and The Tropicana was up 13.5 percent to $27.9 million.
Only two casinos posted decline this month which includes Resorts which was down 3.5 percent to $14.2 million and Bally’s which was down 2.9 percent to $16.5 million. However, at the same time Resorts internet gambling arm, resorts Digital saw its revenue surge by more than 204 percent for the month as compared with a year ago. The Trump Taj Mahal closed after months of union strike which could not be resolved and thus hurt its shaky business. Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union went on strike on July 1 to the casino which was built by president-elect Donald Trump but was later sold to his friend and fellow billionaire Carl Icahn who took the decision to shut down the casino.
