Atlantic City, Las Vegas’ forgotten step child, has seen year-over-year revenues fall 5%, according to a report released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission last week. All but two of the city’s establishments reported drops in revenue, which saw slot revenue dropping 5.2% and table game revenue dropping 4.5%.
The largest winner in the city that knows of a city that’s friend’s with a city that never sleeps was the Trump Taj Mahal, seeing a 7.2% raise in revenue to $47.2 million, up from last year’s $44.1 million. The Taj Poker Room is also where Cyndy Violette and Phil Ivey gained their comeuppances in poker. Those of you familiar with Rounders will also remember the scene where Matt Damon bluffs Johnny Chan in the Taj Poker Room, which represented a time of once was in Atlantic City, before age and filth overgrew every crevice of boardwalk and its surrounding city blocks that’s only illustrious trait now is just how unkempt it’s become.
The other property in the black was the Atlantic City Hilton, seeing a 2.1% year-over-year increase in profits, up to $19.3 million from last year’s $18.9 million.
The Borgata, albeit not turning a profit, essentially broke even, down only $394,103 year-over-year. As for every other casino in the city’s limits, they dropped down faster than the cast of Atlantic City Hookers providing their bastard children with a hot meal.
In comparison year-over-year, the listed casinos reported the following losses from 2009:
- Bally’s Atlantic City — down 4.4% to $44.6 million ($46,653,679)
- Caesars Atlantic City – down 10% to $40.4 million ($44,990,952)
- Harrah’s Atlantic City — down 5.3% to $45.3 million ($47,761,404)
- Tropicana — revenues of $28.4 million, down 9.5% year-over-year ($31,386,679)
- Showboat — revenues of $28.8 million, down 3.1% from 2009 ($29,702,932)
- Resorts Atlantic City — the worst of all the casinos, Resorts reported revenues of $15.9 million, down 19.3% ($19,714,043)
The report also stated that, “After adjustments and a deduction for promotional gaming credits, casinos paid $25.9 million on taxable gross revenue of $323.5 million in July. That money, 8 percent of taxable gross
revenue, goes into the Casino Revenue Fund, which pays for programs that benefit qualifying senior citizens and people with disabilities. In addition, the casinos incurred another $4.5 million in reinvestment obligations. They are required to reinvest 1.25 percent of gross revenues in projects approved by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.”
What an ironic twist of fate that when casinos are in the dumps, somebody else is profiting off of them. That’s like us leaving eggs for the Easter Bunny to find or a cow eating a humanburger.
_____________________________________
Follow Ray Finkle on Twitter!
