Like Las Vegas, Atlantic City had been a gambling mecca for many decades but again like Las Vegas, in recent years it has lost its ability to compete with the casino resorts of Macau and also with new casino resorts opened in surrounding states as more of these made gambling legal. Atlantic City twelve land based casinos until recently. This week was a black one for the city as two more of its casinos closed for good. The Showboat Casino closed its doors on Sunday the 31st of August and Revel Casino Resort closed on Tuesday the 2nd of September. Back in January the Atlantic Club Casino was closed down and the same fate awaits the Trump Plaza Casino on the 16th of this month.
Still Profitable
The Showboat Casino opened in 1987 and was based on a New Orleans River Boat theme. The casino was owned by Caesars Entertainment for the past sixteen years. Caesars still owns three casinos in Atlantic City – Caesars, Bally’s and Harrah’s. Even though the Showboat Casino was still profitable, the company decided to close it down in order to decrease competition from the remaining casinos within Atlantic City and also to attempt to reduce the effects of greater competition from casinos in neighbouring states.
Showboat Casino closure after 27 years
The Showboat Casino opened twenty seven years ago on Atlantic City’s Boardwalk. When it opened it had 516 hotel rooms. The hotel casino was modernised over the years and had more than 1300 rooms and a casino area of almost 12 000 square metres. It also offered players many restaurants, shops and leisure activities. The Showboat hotel casino employed 2100 workers at the time of its closure. Many of its employees have been offered work in the Caesars entertainment Group’s other Atlantic City casinos which continue to operate normally.
The casino’s owners claim they are still looking for a buyer for the Showboat but it had been feared by employees that Caesars may put a deed restriction on the sale so that it could not be operated as a casino again. Many of the casino’s workers cannot understand why Caesars Entertainment chose to close the Showboat which posted a 7.6 million dollar profit for the second quarter of this year. With the closure of the Showboat, Atlantic City had ten remaining casinos and by the end of this month it will have only 8 left and almost 8000 casino employees will be out of work.
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