\nWayne Perry Associated News<\/p>\n
\tATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) \u2013 The Atlantic Club Casino Hotel in Atlantic City says it will close on Jan. 13, reducing the number of casinos in the struggling gambling resort to 11.<\/p>\n
\tIt will be the first Atlantic City casino to close since the Sands shut down in 2006 to make way for a new casino project that never got built.<\/p>\n
\tTwo companies with casinos in Atlantic City, Tropicana Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment, will pay a combined $23.4 million for the business.<\/p>\n
\tAccording to bankruptcy filings made Friday afternoon, Tropicana will take the slot machines and table games for $8.4 million, while Caesars will get the property and its more than 800 hotel rooms for $15 million.<\/p>\n
\tA judge must approve the buyers at a hearing Monday.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cFirst and foremost I would like to express my profound admiration and respect for the employees of this company,\u201d said Michael Frawley, chief operating officer of the Atlantic Club. \u201cThe events of the last few months have evoked an array of emotions, and through it all, the employees of the Atlantic Club have remained consummate professionals. It is because of these outstanding individuals that we were able to build considerable momentum over the last year. Unfortunately our pace was unsustainable in the extremely challenging Atlantic City gaming market.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe said the casino will operate normally until the Jan. 13 closing date. There were 1,659 employees at the casino-hotel as of Nov. 13.<\/p>\n
\tA Caesars spokesman could not immediately say what the company\u2019s plans for the property are. It is to meet with New Jersey gambling regulators within three days to determine what approvals will be necessary in order to end gambling on the premises. The state Division of Gaming Enforcement declined to comment until after Monday\u2019s bankruptcy court hearing.<\/p>\n
\tThe court filings seem to indicate that Caesars may utilize the hotel portion of the property as a non-casino hotel. It already owns four casinos in Atlantic City \u2013 Caesars, Harrah\u2019s, Bally\u2019s and the Showboat \u2013 and hotel rooms for gamblers are at a premium on weekends.<\/p>\n
\tTony Rodio, president of the Tropicana Casino and Resort, declined comment Friday.<\/p>\n
\tWord of the shutdown came on the fourth day of a bankruptcy court auction.<\/p>\n
\tThe Atlantic Club thus became the first Atlantic City casino to fall victim to the insidious downward spiral the resort has found itself in since the advent of casinos in neighboring Pennsylvania that began in late 2006.<\/p>\n
\tAtlantic City\u2019s casino revenues reached a high of $5.2 billion that year, and will likely fall below $3 billion this year.<\/p>\n
\tAnalysts have long said Atlantic City has more casinos than the now-diminished market can bear.<\/p>\n
\tAnother struggling casino, Revel Casino Hotel, could be headed for a second bankruptcy filing, or could be sold to new owners soon.<\/p>\n
\tHalf of the 12 casinos currently operating in Atlantic City have filed for bankruptcy in the last six years.<\/p>\n
\tThe Atlantic Club was formerly known as The Atlantic City Hilton, and before that, as the original Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, not to be confused with the former Trump Marina casino that now carries the Golden Nugget name at the opposite end of town.<\/p>\n
\tIt struggled to compete against newer, bigger casinos here and in Pennsylvania. For the past two years, it turned its focus to low-rollers and local residents, offering cut-rate prices to attract those unable or unwilling to afford the pricier casinos.<\/p>\n
\tThat effort improved the casino\u2019s financial picture, but not quickly enough. It filed for Chapter 11 protection in November.<\/p>\n
\tIts owners, Colony Capital LLC, the Los Angeles hedge fund, paid more than a half-billion dollars for it in 2005.<\/p>\n
\tIt searched in vain for a purchaser for the past three years, before inking a deal to sell itself to the PokerStars web site for $15 million. But that deal fell apart within months due to concerns over whether the websites\u2019 management could qualify for a casino license in New Jersey due to an unresolved indictment against the company\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n
\tPokerStars then aligned itself with Resorts Casino Hotel \u2013 which itself narrowly escaped having to close down in 2010 \u2013 to offer Internet gambling in New Jersey. But those legal troubles led to PokerStars being suspended from applying for a license in New Jersey for two years.<\/p>\n
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Wayne Perry Associated News ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) \u2013 The Atlantic Club Casino Hotel in Atlantic City says it will close on Jan. 13, reducing the number of casinos in the struggling gambling resort to 11. It will be the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}