Glenn Straub Rues Purchase of Revel Atlantic City

When the $2.4 billion Revel casino opened its doors in 2012 it was being hailed as a potential cure for Atlantic City’s ailing gambling market. The venue proved to be a white elephant, though, and after declaring bankruptcy twice in the space of as many years, it subsequently went out of business in 2014.
Unfortunately, the sale and opening of the property is proving equally as fraught with challenges, and after being bought for just $82 million, or around one-thirteeth of its cost to build, the new owner, real estate magnate Glenn Straub, has said he is now seriously considering abandoning his plans to resurrect the beleaguered property altogether.
At the heart of the latest debacle is the inordinate amount of time it is taking Glenn Straub to acquire a casino gambling license for Revel. Straub’s new vision for the venue is as a recreation-based facility which also offers casino gambling options, and he had hoped to have had the business opened by June 15th. However, even his revised opening schedule of sometime in October is looking a distant prospect.
As a result of an excessive level of bureaucracy, the Florida billionaire has stated that he has all but lost patience with the project, and talking to the Star-Ledger said:
“This state stinks. It just stinks.. I worked in five states. This is 10 times worse than what it would be anyplace else… I’ve got other things to do. I don’t have time to be screwing around with this stuff.”
Atlantic City’s casino industry generated peak revenues of $5.2 billion in 2006, but by last year that total had fallen to just $2.41 billion. The number of AC casinos have also dramatically declined, and on October 10th the Trump Taj Mahal will become the fifth casino to go out of business in Atlantic City since 2014.