Taj Mahal Casino Atlantic City Closing
Posted : admin On 3/29/2022- Taj Mahal Casino Atlantic City New Jersey
- Taj Mahal Casino Atlantic City Close
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Culture & lifestyle editor
ATLANTIC CITY — The Trump Plaza Casino and Hotel is now closed, its windows clouded over by sea salt. The Trump Taj Mahal, now under new ownership, is all that remains of the casino empire. The closure of Taj Mahal will leave Atlantic City with seven casinos; as recently as 2014, it had 12. The closings killed thousands of jobs, rocked the real estate market, and killed tax.
When Donald Trump opened the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City in 1990, the superlatives flowed like cheap champagne.
It was world’s biggest casino. It had the most slot machines and gambling tables. It had twice as many parking spaces than any other in Atlantic City.
The Taj Mahal’s run as the greatest didn’t last long. A little more than a year after it opened, the casino was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the first of many setbacks for the property.
Today (Aug. 3), the resort’s management announced the property would close after Labor Day. It blamed workers who went on strike July 1 to regain health benefits lost in its most recent bankruptcy.
Taj Mahal Casino Atlantic City New Jersey
The casino is owned by investor Carl Icahn, who took control of it when it emerged from bankruptcy in February. Icahn also owns the Tropicana, which he also acquired out of bankruptcy.
“The Taj is losing multi-millions a months and now with this strike we see no path to profitability,” said Tony Rodio, the CEO of Tropicana Entertainment, in a statement. “Our directors cannot just allow the Taj to continue burning through tens of millions of dollars when the Union has single handedly blocked any plan to profitability.”
Taj Mahal Casino Atlantic City Close
Bob McDevitt, head of the local Unite Here union, told the Wall Street Journal that Icahn wants to break the union, and “would rather burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes.”
While Icahn is the billionaire shutting the casino, Trump isn’t blameless. Under his tenure, the three Atlantic City casinos he developed—the Taj is the last one operating under the Trump name—suffered from underinvestment and poor management, as he loaded the casinos with debt and milked them for cash.
“Early on, I took a lot of money out of the casinos with the financings and the things we do,” he told The New York Times earlier this year. “Atlantic City was a very good cash cow for me for a long time.”
Atlantic City, always a second-class citizen to Las Vegas, enjoyed a brief resurgence a decade ago, after the opening of the Borgata, an upscale competitor to the Taj, spurred new investment and interest. But the opening of new casinos in Philadelphia and New York sucked the gamblers out of the city, and gambling revenue fell from $5.2 billion in 2005 to $2.6 billion last year.
Trump shed his last financial stake in the company in February, when it emerged from bankruptcy. He had owned 10% of the Taj Mahal since 2009, in exchange for the use of his name. But in 2014, he sued to have his name removed, arguing that the casino’s ”utter state of disrepair” was tarnishing his good name.
Trump Taj Mahal is a casino that has a long and storied history. At one point in time, it was not only the crown jewel of East Coast gambling, but also one of the most popular casinos in the whole world. The casino bearing the name of Donald Trump opened with an extravagant party, befitting of the Trump mantra that everyone would come to know. Performers like Michael Jackson attended the grand opening, and it seemed like Taj Mahal Atlantic City was going to be an unstoppable force. In reality, Atlantic City was nowhere near its peak (that would be reached in 2006), and Trump did not have the proper wherewithal to run an efficient casino. A long and troubled history over the past few decades will end with a final nail in the coffin this September.
Troubles Through the Years
Financial and operational struggles have been just about the only thing consistent in the history of Taj Mahal AC. Just a year after its opening in 1990, Trump was forced to enter into a prepackaged bankruptcy where he would be forced to give away half of his entire stake in the casino. It was five years after this move that Trump would eventually buy the property outright. At this time in 1996, its value was under $1billion, but the reality is that this was likely a high number, even in the booming times of Atlantic City in the 90’s and early 2000’s.
Peak and Downfall
During the early 2000’s, Atlantic City was seeing tremendous gaming revenue and visitor numbers. These numbers were so large that Taj actually expanded its presence by adding an entirely new tower, known as The Chairman Tower, in 2006. Fittingly, 2006 would also be the best year that AC would experience in its history. After this, however, everything began to go downhill, both in AC and especially with Taj Mahal itself.
The Borgata was the worst thing that has happened to Taj Mahal in the last decade. The new, much more luxurious and modern, casino opened off the Atlantic City boardwalk in 2003. Much of Taj’s casino action went to The Borgata over the next few years. Taj Mahal was once known as the poker room capital of the East Coast, but this title quickly shifted to The Borgata. There were more games running, more space, nicer tables, and a higher end atmosphere. At one point featured in movies, Taj Mahal’s poker room went from being the premier in the East Coast to outright closed by 2014.
When the majority of their poker action left, so too did many of their gamblers and visitors. There was little benefit to staying at or coming to Taj Mahal if a tourist could instead stay at The Borgata. Outside of being on the boardwalk itself, Taj Mahal did not have many selling points.
By 2014, Taj Mahal would enter its first round of bankruptcy. As has been the case in each bankruptcy instance, the dispute was between Taj management (now operated by Tropicana), and their employee unions. The bankruptcy would go back and forth from pending closure to promises of a prosperous future. By early 2016, things were looking up at Taj Mahal, as its primary backer (Icahn Enterprises) led the company out of bankruptcy. The good news did not last for long, however.
Icahn and Taj Mahal Closing
Taj Mahal Casino Atlantic City
Carl Icahn was said to be the savior of Taj Mahal, When the city and investors had effectively given up on the property, Icahn agreed to put a virtually endless supply of money into the Taj Mahal in the hopes of returning it to its former glory. This process started in late 2014, and it will conclude in September 2016. Multiple on site changes took place (closing The Chairman Tower being one of them), but not nearly enough was done, and the casino continued to bleed money. Carl Icahn says that he has lost around $100 million in his efforts to revive the Taj Mahal. In our opinion, not nearly enough was done to encourage a real turnaround for the casino, and as a result the final end is now in sight.
Future of Taj Mahal and Atlantic City Closed Casinos
Taj Mahal Casino Atlantic City Nj
In the past several years, Atlantic City has seen a number of casino closures, including Trump Plaza, Showboat, Revel and AC Hilton. The closure of Taj Mahal will mean another several thousand employees will lose their jobs, and another large vacant building will take up space on the AC boardwalk. Eyesore aside, it is certainly a sign of the times. AC has fallen well behind the competition, both in Las Vegas and among its nearby competition in Philadelphia, Maryland and other cities. While it is not impossible for the Taj Mahal to once again be saved at the last minute, this time it looks more improbable than ever.