So the state of NJ shut down a lot of things, including all casinos. I've previously written that casinos are a good place for any airborne and contact surface transmitted disease to be because of the sheer number of people in close proximity at machines and table games as well as the common touching areas. Also for inexplicable reasons, people actually go to casinos when they are sick. And from the play I have observed, they don't even have a positive expectation game. Anyway, for places where casinos are more entertainment than a serious source of tax revenue, the closing of a casino is not a big deal. In Atlantic City, that is not the case.
Atlantic City has had many state interventions as revenue from closing casinos as well as competition from surrounding states ate into their players and players available bankrolls. But even then the casinos were open and generating some revenue. With this closing Atlantic City essentially
has no revenue at all. Below is
chart of AC revenue since the 1970
As you can see 2016 Casino revenue is less than half the peak revenue.
2020 Atlantic County budget is:
NORTHFIELD — Atlantic County’s budget is estimated to increase slightly to $216.7 million in 2020, with the amount to be raised by taxes going up less than 1% to $151.6 million, County Executive Dennis Levinson said Tuesday.
The June 2019 Budget presentation below,
If I'm reading it correctly shows Casino money at $70 million or 33% of total revenues. Now it's not peak AC season so we don't know how much revenue will be lost to the city but the revenue is ~$6 million per month.
Here's the operation budget from the same presentation:
If Casinos go down for 2 months, the entire administrative budget line is gone. Health and Human services could be unfunded. Utilities (whatever that encompasses) could also go unfunded. There is a "reserve for uncollected taxes" but again, one month shut down kills that reserve.
I'm sure people smarter and more informed than I are aware of this possibility and are working on how they'll address that. I'm sure....
