ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The most spectacular and costly failure in Atlantic City’s 36-year history of casino gambling began to play out Monday when the $2.4 billion Revel Casino Hotel emptied its hotel. ADVERTISING ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The most
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The most spectacular and costly failure in Atlantic City’s 36-year history of casino gambling began to play out Monday when the $2.4 billion Revel Casino Hotel emptied its hotel.
Its casino will close early Tuesday morning.
Revel is shutting down a little over two years after opening with high hopes of revitalizing Atlantic City’s struggling gambling market. But mired in its second bankruptcy in two years, Revel has been unable to find anyone willing to buy the property and keep it open as a casino. It has never turned a profit.
“It’s kind of sad,” said Andrew Tannenbaum of Edison, who has stayed at Revel a dozen times in the past year. “Compared to other casinos, this was a lot nicer. There wasn’t the riff-raff here. But I think they overspent, went overboard and got in over their heads. When the Borgata opened, that should have been the last of the high-end casinos for Atlantic City.”
Revel will be the second of three Atlantic City casinos to close in a two-week span. The Showboat Casino Hotel closed its doors Sunday, and Trump Plaza is closing Sept. 16.
So what killed Revel?
Analysts and competitors say it was hampered by bad business decisions and a fundamental misunderstanding of the Atlantic City casino customer.
“The timing of it could not have been worse,” said Mark Juliano, president of Sands Bethlehem in Pennsylvania and the former CEO of Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City. “The financial climate while Revel was developing and when it opened were completely different.”
Revel officials declined to comment.
The casino broke ground just before the Great Recession. It ran out of money halfway through construction and had to drop its plans for a second hotel tower while scrambling for the remaining $1 billion or so it needed to finish the project. When it opened in April 2012, it was so laden with debt that it couldn’t bring in enough revenue to cover it.
The idea behind Revel was to open a totally different resort, a seaside pleasure palace that just happened to have a casino as one of its features. That included Atlantic City’s only total smoking ban, which alienated many gamblers; the lack of a buffet and daily bus trips to and from the casino; and the absence of a players’ club. By the time those decisions were reversed, it was already too late. High room and restaurant prices hurt, too.
