Sunshine in The Dark Comes With New Atlantic City Gambling Revenue Figures

Land-based casino operators in Atlantic City may take a breath of relief after it was announced that the gambling revenues for June were 4% up compared to last year, supported by$9.5 million, which came from online gambling.

Casino business in Atlantic City was seriously declining lately, therefore the city authorities led by the mayor Don Guardian, have been announcing different plans and projects to diversify the dependence of the city on casino business.

Naturally, this wasn’t good news for the big casino operators in the city, which have always been treated special, as they were and generally are still bringing most tourists, hence revenue to Atlantic City.

The nuances in the figures

Casino operators earned more revenue this June in comparison to last year

• The rise was with 4%

• Operators earned $235.9 million in comparison to $227.1 million in June 2013

• Still, there is a high chance that 7,000 casino workers in Atlantic City may lose their jobs in the near future

Therefore, the optimistic information that the revenues of casinos in the city for June went up came extremely handy, especially this week, when 1,153 Trump Plaza workers received pink slips and lately it was reported that casino business in Atlantic City was becoming weaker with each month.

According to Associated Press, the actual figure earned by operators this year in June was $235.9 million, in comparison to $227.1 million in June 2013, when online gambling in the state of New Jersey, was not yet allowed by US gambling laws.

Still, there is another side of the coin in this situation as well, as according to the statistics published by the New Jersey Division of Gambling Enforcement, if the revenue figures of the now closed Atlantic Club are included in the sum, the reality is that the total revenue from casino business in June 2014 was actually down 5.7%.

Online gambling in the state

The regulator authorities in the state also made a remark that the usage of US internet casinos in New Jersey was actually declining for a third consecutive month. The figures showed that the three legal operators’ revenues were $2,048,082 in June this year, which was almost 10% down in comparison to the previous month of May.

Generally, the online gambling activity in the state fell by 9.17% from $10.47 million in May to $9.51 million in June this year.

Still, despite this decline in the revenue figures, it seems that more and more people are showing interest in gambling online in the state, which is visible from the fact that the total online gaming accounts increased with 7.81% to 378,564 accounts, meaning that 27,428 new accounts were created.

Still potential trouble for workers exists

Borgata is still the leader among online operators in New Jersey with $3.4 million in online winnings. It was followed by Caesars Interactive with $2.6 million, Tropicana with $1.7 million, Golden Nugget, which had $710,635 and the two Trump casinos at last, which each had around half million in online revenue last month.

On a more negative note, it was reported that more than 7,000 casino workers in Atlantic City, received warning that they might lose their jobs in the next two months.

In relation to this worrisome information, the head of the local casino workers' union, qualified the potential job losses as “a pending catastrophe,” not only for the affected workers and their families, but also for the state, which still relies heavily on casino taxes to fund its programs for disabled and senior citizens.