Internet gamblers help Atlantic City post 1.7 percent increase

ATLANTIC CITY — Money won from internet gamblers helped Atlantic City’s casinos post a 1.7 percent increase in revenue in October.

Without the $20.5 million that online gambling brought in, the city’s seven casinos would have seen their revenue decline by 0.3 percent last month.

The casinos took in $206.3 million in October, up from $203 million in October 2016.

The Borgata was the only casino to post a monthly decline, down 7.4 percent to $59.4 million, far more than any other Atlantic City casino won. The property owned by MGM Resorts International attributed the decline to customers having a particularly lucky month at table games.

The Golden Nugget was up 17.5 percent to $24.2 million; Caesars was up 9.5 percent to $25.7 million; Resorts was up 4.7 percent to just under $15 million; Harrah’s was up

3.5 percent to $30.3 million; Bally’s was up 1.7 percent to $16.8 million, and the Tropicana was up 0.5 percent to $28.1 million.

If the shuttered Trump Taj Mahal were removed from the equation, the surviving casinos posted a monthly increase of 2.1 percent. The Taj Mahal, opened by now-president Donald Trump in 1990 and closed in October 2016 by fellow billionaire Carl Icahn, is reopening next summer as a Hard Rock casino resort.

Internet gambling was up more than 23 percent from last October, and remains the biggest bright spot in an Atlantic City market that’s emerging from a dim four-year period in which five casinos closed.

The Golden Nugget’s online operations won $6.1 million in October, followed by Borgata ($4.1 million); Resorts Digital ($3.47 million); Tropicana ($3.46 million), and Caesars Interactive-nj ($3.3 million).