Nine of the gambling halls registered revenue decreases, as high as 22.8 percent at the Atlantic City Hilton and as low as 3.8 percent at Caesars.
Only Harrah's Marina Resort and the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa - both in the city's Marina District - registered increases of 19.7 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively. The two casinos, not by coincidence, also recently rolled out major new hotel towers next to their casinos, which increased traffic to both.
The next and last of the triumvirate of casino-hotel expansions this year will be the 782-room Chairman Tower at Trump Taj Mahal, which plans a phased opening starting Labor Day weekend and is intended to help boost Donald J. Trump's flagship casino here. The Taj reported a 19.1 percent revenue decrease last month.
The numbers for Atlantic City were reflective of a bigger malaise for the U.S. gambling industry. Second-quarter earnings ended June 30, reported last week by several major companies with properties in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, showed a bleak picture:
Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which owns the Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza and Trump Marina in Atlantic City, reported a 4.8 percent decrease in net revenue.
Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns four casinos in Atlantic City - Bally's, Showboat, Harrah's Marina Resort and Caesars - reported a 3.7 percent decrease in net revenue.
Boyd Gaming Corp., which co-owns the Borgata with MGM Mirage, was down 10 percent year-over-year, while MGM was down 2 percent in net revenue.
The double-digit dip was enough for Boyd to announce it would delay until 2009 the construction of the $4.8 billion Echelon, a megacasino resort planned for the Las Vegas Strip.
