Revel Casino Atlantic City Latest News

4/14/2022
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Updated on:Jan 08, 2018, 12:02pm EST

The Ocean Resort Casino in Atlantic City is expected to open June 28 along the Atlantic City Boardwalk. It will take over the former Revel casino. There are a lot of stories to tell about the former Revel / current Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City. The bankruptcies, the huge block of rooms that still are unfinished, and the future of the casino are all highlighted in a great new video about he property. Ocean Casino Resort (formerly Revel Casino Hotel Atlantic City) is a resort, hotel and casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States.It is the northernmost casino on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, located on 20 acres (8.1 ha) of land, adjacent to the Showboat Hotel.It is notable for its white sphere structure atop its roof away from the Boardwalk, capable of displaying a wide variety of.

By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press

Revel Casino News Today

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- Atlantic City’s most spectacular casino flop is getting another chance under new ownership and a new name.
Colorado developer Bruce Deifik said Monday he had purchased Atlantic City’s former Revel casino hotel from Florida developer Glenn Straub for $200 million. He plans to reopen it this summer, around the same time the former Trump Taj Mahal casino will reopen nearby under the Hard Rock brand.
The former Revel will be called the Ocean Resort Casino. Deifik called the purchase “a dream come true.”
But the news raises a sobering question for a gambling resort that only recently regained its equilibrium following the shutdown of five of its 12 casinos: Might the sudden reintroduction of two large casinos create the same conditions that led to the wave of shutdowns in the first place?
Revel’s sale was finalized Thursday afternoon, during a blizzard, a fitting development for a project with a turbulent history. It cost $2.4 billion to build, yet lasted just over two years before shutting down, never having come close to turning a profit.
“We are incredibly excited that we were able to take advantage of the opportunity to acquire this tremendous property at a time when Atlantic City is seeing great economic strides,” he said. “The former Revel property opened at a time when Atlantic City was still in economic recovery, and operationally it just did not cater to the customer base for this destination.”
One new amenity Deifik plans is a sports book facility that would operate if New Jersey wins its U.S. Supreme Court case to legalize sports betting.
He said the casino will employ between 2,500 and 3,000 people. It has 1,399 hotel rooms.
Deifik said he plans to bring back some of the restaurants that were popular at Revel, along with some new ones, including an Asian noodle bar. He also plans a high-end players’ club for the casino.
Deifik is president and CEO of Integrated Properties Inc., which owns 103 commercial properties in five states, including the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Palm Springs, California, and several office and retail centers in the Denver and Phoenix areas.
Analysts are mixed on whether Atlantic City’s seven operating casinos can handle two more competitors. Some say the reopenings could hurt smaller casinos and possibly lead one or more to close, but others are optimistic the new offerings — particularly the music-themed, globally known Hard Rock brand — can bring new customers who otherwise would not have traveled to Atlantic City.
Revel opened in 2012, with no less an aim than to rewrite the rules of success in Atlantic City’s casino market. It eschewed bus-riding, buffet-patronizing day trippers in favor of a hoped-for clientele of Wall Street traders, hedge fund execs and the highest of high-rollers. It was the only Atlantic City to ban smoking.
The $13 million in casino winnings it took in its first month ranked it near the bottom of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos — a spot it would occupy for its two-year existence. It went bankrupt twice, choking on massive debt it couldn’t come close to paying, and closed on Sept. 2, 2014.
Straub, a Polo-loving multimillionaire, bought it for $82 million from bankruptcy court and then fought with state officials over whether he needed a casino license. He had no immediate comment on the sale, bit planned to issue a statement later in the day.
The closest he got to reopening Revel came with the partial installation of a rope-climbing course in what used to be the casino’s port cochere area. But even that modest venture failed, and was ripped out while half-finished.
Straub sold the property for $118 million more than he paid for it, but he incurred large expenses while keeping it closed.
Before settling on a reopened casino and hotel, Straub floated a wide variety of proposed uses for the property. They included a water park; condominiums; a health-themed spa; an equestrian facility; a so-called “tower of geniuses” where the world’s top minds would gather to tackle society’s problems, and a temporary home for Syrian refugees.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A perennially challenged Atlantic City casino will finally turn a profit this month and chart the way forward under the ownership of a New York hedge fund.

The Ocean Casino Resort, which until a few weeks ago was known as the Ocean Resort Casino , has greatly reduced its debt and will return to profitability in May, according to Eric Matejevich, the interim CEO managing the oceanfront property while an ownership transfer takes place.

The property, which opened in 2012 as Revel and closed two years later, is in the process of changing hands yet again. It is being transferred from the late Bruce Deifik, the Colorado developer who died in a car crash last month , to hedge fund Luxor Capital, who had agreed to take over and invest $70 million into the property as Deifik ran out of money to operate it. The deal could close sometime in June.

Of the $70 million Luxor pumped into the property earlier this year, $50 million went to pay down debt, leaving it with a greatly improved balance sheet, Matejevich told The Associated Press.

That encouraged David Schwartz, a gambling expert at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

“Reducing the debt load will ease a great deal of pressure, making it easier for the property to invest in facilities and promotions that will draw customers,” he said. “Oftentimes, putting a casino on a more solid financial footing can make a big difference.”

The resort had begun to run out of money in September, prompting Deifik to relinquish ownership in January, after just six months.

The immediate priority was to stop the bleeding; the property had been losing money every month since September, and had fallen below state-mandated liquidity requirements.

“In a lot of ways, we’re going faster than we had imagined we could,” Matejevich said. “We’ve largely eliminated losses at the property and we are making a major effort to reintroduce this place to people.”

It’s a small sample size, but encouraging nonetheless: the casino won more from customers at slot machines this April than in any previous month, and recorded its second-highest hotel occupancy rate. The exact numbers will be released by state regulators later this month.

The property’s history has not been a good one. Original investors Morgan Stanley pulled out before it was halfway finished, taking a $1 billion loss. Revel went bankrupt twice, never came close to turning a profit, and shut down in September 2014. It remained closed under the ownership of Florida developer Glenn Straub, who sold it to Deifik in January 2018.

Deifik reopened it under a new name last June, but quickly ran out of money once the busier summer months ended. The casino lost $3.2 million in September; $4.1 million in October; $5.5 million in November and $5.8 million in December, and by January, Luxor, who had been one if its lenders, agreed to take over.

When it was called Revel, the property was one of five of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos to go out of business between 2014 and 2016. With less competition, the surviving casinos began to fare better. But with Revel reopening as the Ocean casino and the Trump Taj Mahal reopening as the Hard Rock, a higher level of competition has been reintroduced to a market that had only recently regained its footing. Operating profits in Atlantic City fell by more than 15% last year.

Ocean has instituted a new marketing plan emphasizing its casino offerings — hence the transposition of “resort” and “casino” in its name — and is addressing a longtime patron gripe by adding new elevators to make it easier to get to the casino floor from the hotel.

Revel Casino Atlantic City Latest News Headlines

Players club members now receive offers seven days a week, up from once a week, said Mike Donovan, the property’s chief marketing officer. He added the casino has a database from when it operated as Revel, and is contacting former customers “that we haven’t talked to in a while.”

One of its big goals is to add 500 hotel rooms within its existing tower, boosting its inventory from 1,400.

Casino

The casino is adding 200 new slot machines, and said it has bought out the lease for the Royal Jelly burlesque club on its premises from operator Ivan Kane. Ocean will replace it by Memorial Day weekend with what it describes as a “speakeasy” club that will also offer burlesque, as well as tabletop gambling.

Other amenities are coming along more slowly. The property still does not have a buffet, and won’t this summer, either; a food court is planned for the interim. A Starbucks just inside the main casino entrance has been on the books for months, but construction has not yet started.

Perhaps the most important development is a commitment on the part of the property’s future owners to keep Ocean open and running for the foreseeable future, past the busy summer months.

Atlantic City’s main casino union recently asked regulators to help protect casino jobs at properties owned by hedge funds, accusing them of seeking short-term profits at the expense of long-term investment and growth. The union’s president, Bob McDevitt, however, said Luxor appears to be sincere in its desire to rebuild Ocean’s business and operate it for the foreseeable future.

“Luxor is committed to operating Ocean and is pleasantly surprised by the speed of operating improvements at the property,” Matejevich said. “Luxor fully anticipates the market slowdown associated with the fall and winter seasons.”

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