Another victim of the casino epidemic plaguing Atlantic City County. After the Atlantic Club, the Revel and the Showboat, the historic Trump Plaza is also in danger of closing down. A death that seems impossible to stop and that is reaping thousands of victims among dealers and groupiers. More than a thousand would be unemployed if Trump closed too.
Bob McDevitt, the president of the casino workers' union Unite-Here, is asking Congress for help in resolving what he described as an imminent catastrophe that will hit the tourism industry hard if nothing is done soon.
The overwhelming power of Las Vegas on one side of the globe and Macao on the other leaves no room for nostalgia for an now obsolete Atlantic City. A city that bases all its wealth on gambling is falling piece by piece, while the new capitals of vice accrue record takings. It doesn't seem so much that the crisis has taken root in the gambling segment for the first time, but rather that there is no more room for the sector's historic cathedrals.
There is no longer room in Atlantic City for celebrity endorsers such as Frank Sinatra – once a regular at the Atlantic Club. The gambling ring's revenues, which brought in more than five billion just eight years ago, are reduced to less than three last year. All of this translates into 1600 down-and-out casino workers now reduced to huge rooms filled with empty tables.
