Like the Monty Burns casino, betting at actual, physical, brick-and-mortar casino is an activity that is imploding on itself, and the latest example is the closing of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resorts in Atlantic City. Online gambling, on the other hand, it’s where it’s at. Billionaire Carl Icahn bought the Taj Mahal and other Trump properties in 2014, and has been mired in negotiating a new labor deal, healthcare, and a funding of pension benefits ever since, until he eventually decided that it was cheaper to just close the thing.
Taj Mahal and other Trump Casinos
The Taj Mahal and other Trump casinos like the Trump Plaza have endured never-ending lows and restructurings as Atlantic City has been more of a Fallout than a New Vegas – just like Louis Malle envisioned it as early as 1980. Remember how excited we were when the Taj Mahal opened? Then a week later we just forgot about it. Gone are such headliners as Little Timmy and the Shebangs ,the Shebangs, and the New Shebangs featuring Big Timmy. One thing’s for sure and it’s that Icahn is not thinking his employees. All the cardsharps, bottom dealers and shills. Where will they go? They won’t be managing Icahn’s chain of nursing homes.
Job Loss
Approximately 3,000 workers lost their jobs, bringing the total jobs lost by Atlantic City casino closings to 11,000 since 2014. Hopefully many of them have found and will find a place in the budding online gambling industry. However, this is not one of the many things that one could blame on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. As a matter of fact, the Donald lost control of the casino more than a decade ago and tried unsuccessfully to remove his name from the property. One can only wonder if they would have changed the name to the Alan Smithee Taj Mahal Casino Resorts.
Atlantic City Casino
The Taj Mahal won more from gamblers than any other Atlantic City casino since it opened in 1990 until the opening of the Borgata in 2003. It went bankrupt a few times, but then so did most Atlantic City casino at one point or another. Business was good for the most part; so good in fact that many other states threw their hats in the ring, including Connecticut in 1993, Delaware in 1996, New York in 2004, Pennsylvania in 2006, and Maryland in 2011.
Atlantic City’s gaming profit dropped to $2.6 billion last year from $5.2 in 2006. Quite possibly more than a few people will find in all of this an allegory of what the future will hold for the United States should the Donald be elected president. These people are crackpots. If it’s jackpots and not crackpots that you want, though, you can find them at online gambling casinos.