Revel Atlantic City A $2.4bn Flop, Shutting In September

The $2.4 billion Revel Casino Hotel opened to the public in April, 2012, but ten months later the casino resort filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In May 2013, Revel was then granted court approval for a restructuring plan to reduce its $1.503 billion debt to $272 million, but the business continued its losing ways and now the mammoth resort has announced it will shut its doors on September 10th. Initially it had been hoped a buyer would be found in bankruptcy court but with no interested party forthcoming Revel’s upcoming closure will now deal yet another major blow to Atlantic City’s beleaguered gambling industry, as well as the 3,100 members of staff who will now lose their jobs.
Commenting on the issue, Revel’s owners released a statement stating that “despite the effort to improve the financial performance of Revel, it has not proven to be enough to put the property on a stable financial footing.”
However, Revel is not alone and it now becomes just another Atlantic City casino to go out of business in 2014, following in the footsteps of the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel, with The Showboat and Trump Plaza also closing this year.
Over the past few years Atlantic City has seen its casino industry contract as increased competition from neighboring Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York continues to draw customers away from the once dominant East Coast gambling resort. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie then pushed for the construction of the mega-casino resort along the boardwalk as part of his five-year plan to revive Atlantic City, but unfortunately Revel’s revenues have not met forecasts with the business losing $110 million in 2012, followed by $130 million last year.
New Jersey opened its first casino in 1978 and gambling revenues subsequently increased every year until the recession hit in 2007. These days, industry experts have all but acknowledged Atlantic City’s best days are now far behind, and commenting on the decline of New Jersey’s gambling industry, Caesars Chief Executive Officer Gary Loveman, said:
“As Pennsylvania gaming in particular became available to the incumbent customer group, the drive-in business in Atlantic City has all but disappeared. That was both a large and very lucrative part of what was on offer in Atlantic City and I think most of us who worked there agree that business will never return.”