<<More bad news likely in store for AC casinos
November 8, 2008 3:51 PM ET
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Lately, the luck has been all bad for Atlantic City's 11 casinos. Last week alone, a major casino developer put a $2 billion Boardwalk project on indefinite hold, and the city's newest and most successful casino laid off 400 workers.
And Donald Trump had to knock $46 million off the price of one of his casinos in order to salvage a deal to sell it to someone else. Trump's casino company is cutting the pay of its top executives by 5 percent.
More bad news is expected Monday with the release of October's casino revenue numbers. To say they are expected to be bad is putting it mildly.
Consider: September saw the greatest monthly decline in revenues in the 30-year history of legalized gambling, down more than 15 percent.
And that was before the financial meltdown hit with full force, and before a smoking ban on the casino floor took effect; it's not due to expire until Nov. 16.
That ban chased away some of the city's most prolific gamblers, who went to slots parlors in Pennsylvania and New York, and Indian-run casinos in Connecticut, where they can still smoke.
All told, it was a most unwelcome October surprise.
On Thursday, Pinnacle Entertainment said it could be "years and years and years" before it builds its beach house-themed casino on land where the Sands Casino Hotel once stood. Since the company blew it up last fall to make way for its new project, the land has sat vacant, to the dismay of city officials and many residents, including Sands workers who lost their jobs to make way for a new resort that now looks iffy.>>
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(Dead link: http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=AP&date=20081108&id=9361455)
BJinNJ
November 8, 2008 3:51 PM ET
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Lately, the luck has been all bad for Atlantic City's 11 casinos. Last week alone, a major casino developer put a $2 billion Boardwalk project on indefinite hold, and the city's newest and most successful casino laid off 400 workers.
And Donald Trump had to knock $46 million off the price of one of his casinos in order to salvage a deal to sell it to someone else. Trump's casino company is cutting the pay of its top executives by 5 percent.
More bad news is expected Monday with the release of October's casino revenue numbers. To say they are expected to be bad is putting it mildly.
Consider: September saw the greatest monthly decline in revenues in the 30-year history of legalized gambling, down more than 15 percent.
And that was before the financial meltdown hit with full force, and before a smoking ban on the casino floor took effect; it's not due to expire until Nov. 16.
That ban chased away some of the city's most prolific gamblers, who went to slots parlors in Pennsylvania and New York, and Indian-run casinos in Connecticut, where they can still smoke.
All told, it was a most unwelcome October surprise.
On Thursday, Pinnacle Entertainment said it could be "years and years and years" before it builds its beach house-themed casino on land where the Sands Casino Hotel once stood. Since the company blew it up last fall to make way for its new project, the land has sat vacant, to the dismay of city officials and many residents, including Sands workers who lost their jobs to make way for a new resort that now looks iffy.>>
For the rest of the article see:
(Dead link: http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=AP&date=20081108&id=9361455)
BJinNJ