Trump Taj Mahal Casino Announces It Will CloseNo Official Date Set For Shuttering Of 26-Year-Old Casino |
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Sometime after Labor Day, Atlantic City will have just seven brick-and-mortar casinos.
The Trump Taj Mahal, which is wholly owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, said Wednesday that it will close its doors in October. The closing will be the first for the Atlantic City casino industry since 2014, when four casinos went out of business.
The casino had just re-opened its storied poker room in May. The Taj Mahal has been featured in a number of films, including Rounders, in which stars Matt Damon and Edward Norton play a session in the casino’s poker room.
Atlantic City’s main casino workers union has been on strike against the casino for about a month over health insurance and pension benefits, according to the Associated Press. The Taj Mahal’s closing means that 3,000 jobs will be lost. Icahn said that he has lost nearly $100 million in about a year and a half since he helped the casino thru bankruptcy.
Icahn acquired the casino that presidential candidate Donald Trump opened 26 years ago thru Chapter 11 bankruptcy for roughly $300 million. The property was built for nearly $1 billion.
The casino was the highest grossing in the city until the opening of Borgata in 2003. Thru the first six months of 2016, the Taj Mahal won $85,180,273 from gamblers, a year-over-year decrease of 3.6 percent from $88,406,362.
Unlike most of its competitors, the Taj Mahal isn’t involved with online gambling.
Icahn said before that the casino could close if state voters approve casinos in the northern part of the state. That vote will happen in November.
Union president Bob McDevitt told the AP that Icahn was to blame for the situation with the Taj Mahal. “This titan of Wall Street is utterly incapable of making a decision unless it is mean-spirited and benefiting him alone," McDevitt said. "The great deal-maker would rather burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes. In the end he’ll have to live with what he’s done to working people in Atlantic City.”
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