Atlantic City land-based casino revenue is down from previous years, as 2024 was a tough time frame for operations. Add in the first two months of 2025, and we see a continual downward trend. All nine casinos in Atlantic City have seen a decrease in earnings when comparing 2024 Gross Revenue Retention to 2023. At the same time, the iGaming sector has seen tremendous growth, with a solid 14% increase in earnings from the previous year.
When combining the revenue earnings for all nine Atlantic City casinos, the region generated $675.1 million in gross operating profit for 2024. This was a 9.3% decrease from the $744.7 million earned in 2023. On an individual casino basis, only the Borgata saw a less than 10% decrease from 2023, with a 7.7% drop and $208.5 million in earnings.
Golden Nugget Casino (almost 40%), Resorts Casino (43.8%), and Bally’s Atlantic City (76%) saw harsh declines. However, moving into 2025, the casinos were hopeful that earnings would turn around.
For January 2025, Atlantic City gaming venues saw a boost of 3% compared to last January’s earnings, but a 3.8% drop in February basically removed any forward progress. In-person slots brought in $152.1 million in February, with a decrease of 4.3% in earnings. Other in-person casino gaming contributed just over $51 million, which was a 2.5% drop.
Golden Nugget’s revenue decline could reduce the quarterly average promotional spend per player.
As noted by Comped.com, “Golden Nugget is actually second only to Borgata in gift giveaways and rewards its highest-volume players, meaning Golden Nugget has the highest average gaming comp amount per recipient.”
While this is still true, Golden Nugget's promotional spending declined 5.08% from January through February at the Atlantic City casino. No promotional spend was reported for the NJ online casino during this period.
While Atlantic City casinos are struggling, the iGaming industry is flourishing. In February, the iGaming sector brought in just over $207 million from slots, table games, and poker services. This was $4.4 million more than in-person gaming and a 14% increase from 2023.
Retail betting also took a backseat to online options with revenue reports showing over $988 million in wagers. Of that amount, only $39.3 million was placed in person.
Sportsbooks in the state won $73.6 million from wagers, a 9% increase from February 2025. When combining the sports betting and iGaming totals for New Jersey, we see a 5% boost in year-over-year growth.
The gap between Atlantic City’s casinos and New Jersey’s growing iGaming sector highlights a clear shift in the state’s landscape. As all nine casinos face declining profits and cut back on promotions, the iGaming market continues to surge, surpassing in-person revenue with strong double-digit growth.
