Atlantic City casino revenue walloped by Sandy

ATLANTIC CITY - Hurricane Sandy walloped the dozen casinos here, which reported a nearly 20 percent decline last month in total gambling revenue compared with October 2011.

The 12 casinos, which were shut for four-plus days after Gov. Christie ordered their closure as the storm approached, reported $209.4 million in casino revenue, down from $261.4 million a year ago, according to figures released Friday afternoon by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.

Most of the 12 casinos reopened Nov. 2, after Gov. Christie lifted the evacuation order. The last to open was the smaller Atlantic Club, which resumed full operations Monday.

However, many of them were reporting substantially lower business volumes this week; patrons from heavily hit areas in North Jersey and New York have been slow to return.

"I actually thought it would be worse, when you consider the magnitude of the closure," said Tony Rodio, president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, which serves as the voice of the Atlantic City casino industry. Rodio is also chief executive of the Tropicana Resort Hotel. "We'll have to watch November and December to see how long it takes for us to get back to normal."

Every casino here reported declines last month, ranging from 4.3 percent at the Golden Nugget (the first to reopen after the storm, at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 2) to 38 percent at the Trump Taj Mahal.

Borgata, the city's top-grossing casino, reported a nearly 21 percent drop in gaming revenue, to $42 million.

The closely watched Revel - the $2.4 billion casino that debuted in early April - has been generating revenue at about half of what Wall Street expected. It finished last month ranked 10th. Revel reported $9.3 million in revenue, just behind the much-smaller Resorts, which generated $9.5 million.

Slot-machine revenue fell 21.8 percent, to $149.1 million, while that from table games decreased 14.6 percent, to $60.2 million.

In addition to the storm, October also had one fewer Saturday than in 2011. The A.C. casinos tend to do more business on weekends.

Rodio said he believed that, if the casinos hadn't closed and had had that additional weekend, they could have broken even for the month.

For the first 10 months of the year, Atlantic City's casinos won $2.7 billion, down 6.2 percent from the same period in 2011.

It has been a precipitous decline that dates to late 2006, when Pennsylvania opened the first of what are now 11 gambling houses. The economic recession followed in 2008, further cutting into revenue here.

Atlantic City had its highest revenue in 2006, generating $5.2 billion. Last year, it made $3.3 billion.