Industry Noize: Atlantic City Resorts Face Closure

The Showboat casino hotel next door is to close Aug. 31, unless a last-minute buyer steps forward. Trump Plaza is scheduled to shut down Sept. 16.

The one having the biggest impact is Revel Casino Hotel, which has never turned a profit and will close its doors Sept. 10 unable to find a buyer in bankruptcy court, the company announced Aug. 12. The closure will mean the loss of more than 3,100 jobs.

“Despite the effort to improve the financial performance of Revel, it has not proven to be enough to put the property on a stable financial footing,” the company said. Revel’s situation was compounded by a “considerable non-controllable expense structure” that financially burdened the property, according to the statement.

It also said challenges arose in attempts to sell Revel. The company said it cannot avoid “an orderly wind-down of the business at this time.”

Revel said it still hopes to find a buyer through the bankruptcy process. But it acknowledged that if that happened, it would be after the facility had already shut down.

State casino regulators also announced Aug. 12 they have no authority to force The Showboat, owned by Caesars Entertainment, or Trump Plaza, owned by Trump Entertainment Properties, to remain open for an additional four months while other buyers are sought.

Adding insult to injury, real estate celebrity Donald Trump has sued Trump Entertainment Properties to have his name removed from the Plaza and Taj Mahal properties.

In addition, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie recently vetoed a bill that would have allowed casino sports betting, an option that might have improved the Boardwalk’s outlook. New Jersey has slipped to third place behind Nevada and Pennsylvania, whose casinos touched off Atlantic City’s revenue and employment plunge in 2007.

The city’s casino revenue has fallen from $5.2 billion in 2006, when Pennsylvania opened its first casino, to $2.86 billion last year.

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