Statistics for May and June were similarly dire.Īnd many laid-off casino workers - including some who until Monday night expected to be back at work within days - will remain without a job. In April, the first full month the casinos were closed, Atlantic City’s gambling revenue declined by nearly 69% compared with the same month a year earlier. The 3 1/2-month shutdown has been devastating to the casinos’ finances, as well as those of the thousands of people who work in them. When they stopped at the first traffic light at the end of the Expressway, they might have noticed some stores in Atlantic City’s outlet mall district that are still boarded up from a night of protests May 31 over the death of George Floyd days earlier. They drove past billboards on the Atlantic City Expressway advertising concerts by ‘70s pop acts that were never held. Visitors returning to Atlantic City noticed some changes since the casinos were last open in March. That rocked Atlantic City’s casinos, forcing them to abandon reopening plans they had spent months making.

On Monday, Murphy canceled what would have been the start of indoor dining in New Jersey. The Borgata has not set a reopening date. It quickly decided to scrap its planned reopening after Murphy canceled permission for indoor dining in the state, and imposed smoking and drinking bans on the casinos.

Only the Borgata, the city’s top-performing casino, will remain shut. Patrons for the most part observed social distancing guidelines as well, helped along by plexiglass dividers between seats at card, craps and roulette tables, and slot machines turned off at certain intervals to create distance between players. The casinos are limited to no more than 25% of usual capacity, but that did not appear to be a problem Thursday morning.

A few wore full face-covering hoods that extended to their chests. In 2 1/2 hours on the gambling floor of the Hard Rock casino, an Associated Press reporter did not see a single customer without a face mask. Phil Murphy appeared to be nearly universal, at least in the early going.

(AP) - Eager to hit the slot machines and table games after a 108-day absence, gamblers wore face masks and did without smoking and drinking Thursday as Atlantic City’s casinos reopened amid the coronavirus pandemic that has drastically changed things both inside and outside the casino walls.Ĭompliance with a series of anti-virus measures imposed by New Jersey Gov.

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