The indefinite shutdown of Atlantic City casinos will almost certainly cost the industry what could have been a lucrative Memorial Day weekend near the end of this month.
As of the start of this week, the majority of the city’s nine casino websites weren’t taking reservations for before June 1 — the exceptions being the three Caesars Entertainment properties that unrealistically allow you to book as soon as this weekend, as well as Hard Rock and its offering of refundable rooms beginning Friday, May 22.
(Bally’s, one of the three Caesars properties, lists this week’s dates as “sold out,” underscoring the conclusion that this weekend’s reservations will go unfulfilled.)
Tropicana, meanwhile, has thrown in the towel for the first week of June.
Gov. Phil Murphy ordered closure of the casinos on March 16, which, absent the global COVID-19 pandemic, would have been the first week of NCAA basketball’s March Madness tournament.
Even a June 1 reopening seems like a stretch, given New Jersey’s continuing ranking of No. 2 behind New York on all major U.S. pandemic metrics, including total deaths.
Asked about the casinos last week, Murphy said, “There’s no news on casinos, but obviously the governing bodies and the representatives of the workers will very much be a part of any decisions that get made.
“Again, as I mentioned to the earlier question about golf, it isn’t golf versus non-essential retail. It’s outdoors/indoors, and casinos are quite decidedly indoors. Now, I had said at the very first press conference that I participated in on Friday, March 13, that they have big scale, which helps. But there’s no decisions there.”