We have all known this day was coming for quite some time, but is sad nonetheless. At 6:00am this morning, Atlantic City’s Trump Plaza casino closed its doors.
The Trump Plaza is the fourth Atlantic City casino to shut down this year. The first was the Atlantic Club casino at the south end of the famous Boardwalk on January 12th. Fast forward to just a couple weeks ago and Showboat on the north end of the Boardwalk was next on August 31st, followed two days later by its next door neighbor, the two-year old Revel.
The Revel was a particular disaster, opened on April 2nd, 2012 at the cost of $2.4 billion. Unlike most of the Boardwalk casinos, which have distinctly “old school” feels to them, the Revel was a glitzy “Las Vegas style” casino, meant to compete with the Borgata. To say it never gained any traction is an understatement. Management tried to lure players with a promotion offering to refund losses of $100 or more and even reinstated smoking in the casino to try to get more locals to visit, but nothing worked. The casino recently received a bid to purchase it for $90 million, which might lead to it eventually receiving new life, but anything extremely positive is still a long ways off.
And if losing four of twelve casinos in less than a year isn’t bad enough, Trump Entertainment Resorts recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and said that it may have to close the Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza’s sister casino next to Showboat, in November.
Considering how poorly the Trump Plaza has done in recent years, it is no surprise it is closing. According to figures provided by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the Trump Plaza’s total gaming win (gambling revenue) was by far the lowest of the ten casinos that still operated in August. Last month, the Trump Plaza brought in only about $4.9 million in gambling revenue, a staggering 45 percent drop from August 2013. The next lowest was from the outgoing Revel, which had $12.1 million in gaming win. For comparison, the Borgata had $65.9 million gaming win in August. That means the Trump Plaza made as much during the entire month as the Borgata did in fewer than three days.
A message has been posted on the Trump Plaza’s website telling former customers that comps, loyalty points, and unpaid winnings can be redeemed at the Taj Mahal. Anyone who tried to make reservations at the Trump Plaza for September 16th through September 30th were automatically booked at the Taj (hey honey, do you think we should check to see if the place where we want to stay is still in business?). As for that website, it still up, but it is almost barren. Most of the menu on the left side is empty, though the spaces where the menu items were still link to their corresponding pages. Those pages, though, are also mostly empty. The photos section is still available, though, so you might want to right-click and save a few to keep as mementos.
