Atlantic City is no closer to winning any smiles back than it is in reversing what has become a hopeless trend. In what has seemingly become a guarantee every month, the once proud gambling destination turned in another lackluster revenue month in September, falling 12.9 percent compared to its numbers this time a year ago.
For the month, the city’s 12 casinos earned $240.2 million in revenue with slots accounting for $177.3 million of that total. Incidentally, those slots numbers also represented a 10.6 percent decline while table games, which earned $62.9 million for the month, dropped a staggering 19 percent from a year ago.
11 of the 12 casinos posted monthly declines with the Atlantic Club Casino the only one netting an increase of a measly four percent for the month. Nevertheless, it’s a small victory in its own right considering that its contemporaries have seen nothing but red for the month.
The biggest loser was Caesars Atlantic City, which saw its revenues fall 28.5 percent to $23.8 million. Not far behind was Trump Plaza Hotel, which saw its revenues drop 28 percent to just $6.4 million, while sister company Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort rounding out the ignominious to three with an 18.9 percent decline to just $22.6 million.
Bally’s Atlantic City barely made it past $20 million in revenues, posting an 18.1 percent decline of its own; the Showboat Casino Hotel saw its revenues drop by 16.8 percent to just $16.1 million. Revel Casino also continued its downward spiral with only $14.8 million in revenue to show for the month, 11.9 percent worse than its numbers a year ago.
Even Atlantic City’s supposed big guns – Borgata and Harrah’s – posted decline in revenues with the former posting a 9.8 percent drop to $29.5 million while the latter accounting for a 6.5 percent drop to $51.7 million.
The staging of the Ms. America pageant wasn’t even enough to drive up revenues for the casino joints. Sure, there were thousands of more people than usual that went to the gambling destination, but a big chunk of them showed little to no interest in gambling any of their money away.
That has been the case of Atlantic City in recent years. No matter the entertainment options that are available in the area, the town goes as the gambling numbers go. And with revenues continuing to plummet, it goes to show that Atlantic City needs more than just beauty pageants to jumpstart its drowning casino industry.
Revel hires new president
In yet another attempt to change its downtrodden fortunes, Revel has decided to promoted its former interim COO, Scott Kreeger, to be the casino’s new president and COO. Kreeger takes the deliriously difficult job of changing Revel’s fortunes from Jeffrey Hartmann, who had been interim CEO since early in the year.
Kreeger should make for a good leader for Revel, although the use of the word “good” is valid to a whole lot of interpretations. But if for nothing else, the man brings a lot of experience to the table, not the least of which were various roles served within Station Casinos, Fertitta Entertainment, and MGM Mirage.
