Atlantic City casinos saw gaming revenue slip in April after posting a modest year-on-year gain in March.
AC’s computations have grown increasingly slide-rule-worthy, given the closure of four casinos in 2014 and the launch of New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market, which generated $12.7m in revenue last month.
On a pure apples to apples comparison of brick-and-mortar gaming revenue, the eight surviving casinos generated $186.3m in April, down 4.1% from what those same eight earned in April 2014. Factor in contributions from online gambling and the decline shrinks to 3%. Factor in both online gambling and those shuttered four casinos and the decline rises to 15.6%.
In pure brick-and-mortar terms, the month was evenly divided between winners and losers. The Borgata retained its death grip on the number one ranking, despite falling 2.9% to $53.5m. Runner-up Harrah’s enjoyed a 17.7% gain, but was well off the pace with $29.4m.
The Tropicana rose just 2.9% to $22.538m, but this was just enough to leap into third place, thanks to a truly terrible month at Caesars AC, which plummeted 33.9% to $22,535m. New Jersey Casino Control Commission chairman Matt Levinson told the Associated Press that Caesars’ decline was primarily the result of the property enjoying a particularly stellar April 2014, during which Caesars was up 17%.
As for the rest, Bally’s AC was down 3.5% to $16.1m, the Trump Taj Mahal was off 11.6% to $15.6m, the Golden Nugget rose 10% to $14.3m and Resorts rose 13.5% to $12.2m. For the year to date, the eight survivors’ brick-and-mortar revenue is up 2.6% to $731m, while online gambling revenue is up 18.6% to $47.8m.
