Topic: House always wins? The case of Trump Plaza. (Read 425 times)

I think the argument is wider then just Trump, because of tax codes its better to be in debt then declare a profit and pay tax on it.   If a sequence of bankruptcies occurred it was probably related to a systemic change in that state or area, tax codes could be part of it any change there can be great in justifying the ongoing operations and bias.   Not just within the state but if nearby states alter their laws to make their own business more competitive then it reduce the advantages that were previously true in Atlantic City for so long.

Add in also the quite obvious competition ongoing from online gambling, it used to be gambling was so restricted anywhere that allowed it had quite a bonus to their operations from that government regulatory dynamic putting them in the spot light.   I think that restriction overall can be said to be lifting generally.    I think in China they ban gambling apart from certain regions only they are allowed a more lax regime but thats a communist authoritarian setup of law and dictatorship where as the laws in other countries are unlikely to be quite the same stranglehold on the common economy.

I have never heard this building since I am not from the state and never followed Trump after he's out of the presidency. But if it's about the actual gambling business, there are several factors that we can guess about it. Maybe, the board of members and directors don't agree anymore to each other and doesn't share anymore the same goal in the long term of their operation and that's a big disagreement that they have to close down the business.

Next, the casino business is no longer profitable which I highly doubt. But who knows, right? With all of the operating expenses, salaries, internal and external expenses, there is a possibility.

Another possibility that adds impact to lesser to no profitability about the change of most gamblers like with the transition of gambling offline to online.

You are right
Although the casino business is a very profitable business,  many factors can cause it to go bankrupt.  But, in the case of Trump's casino, I think there is more to it than just being bankrupt. When businesses go bankrupt,  they do not demolish their buildings and destroy properties,  rather they sell off properties to raise money to settle their creditors while the balance left goes to the owners of the business.  If Trump's Casino was going through financial and other management issues, demolishing the casino instead of selling it off to other casino owners or other people inorder to make money from it sends a different message entirely. Demolishing the casino is not a wise decision except the casino went against the government's authorities or it was cited in a wrong location.

Physical casinos are giving way to online casinos. I think that might be why this casino closed down. There's nothing in our age that hasn't been transformed online. Everything that doesn't go online is lost to time. I can't remember the last time I went to a physical casino. I used to go to physical shops to bet on football matches. But now I find them noisy and unpleasant. I think a casino can never make a loss. But it can choose to keep up with the times.

Yeah, we should say for a number of reasons. You already hand out a couple of them. House edge must be the primary source of a casino to exist longer but I already saw some casinos who have no house edge. They probably have other means to sustain their operations like they advertise a brand or something.

A good business or a casino can attract lots of customers but in order to become good, they may need to have enough budget first and spend it like crazy on different things like promotion for example. Trump plaza is too huge for only just a casino, plus its name is also a plaza which mean a place where people can walk and relax but I think they also offer a hotel and restaurant service.   

The story of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino reflects the ups and downs of Atlantic City's casino sector and Donald Trump's business dealings. Trump's direct role decreased over time due to financial adjustments and legal matters. The saying "the house always wins" shows its limits when external challenges and internal management decisions impact casino operations. Trump Plaza's closure and demolition underscore  the importance of adaptability and effective management in business.


The phenomenon of large casinos failing and being demolished isn't unique to Trump Plaza. Im sure if we serch we find another examples. But just because Trump's name has been highly prominent in public discourse, the story has received considerable attention in the media.

Its just shows the ever changing nature of the entertainment and hospitality industries, where adaptability and innovation are key to survival and growth.

Business is business, risk is inevitable in business.

If casino is a zero risk business i.e. anyone who run casino will always profitable, most people will start their own casinos without worrying anything since they will earn money easily.

Big casino has still a chance to fail, it just the chance is really low compared to fairly new casinos.

This had nothing to do with the house losing.  Trump strategically claims bankruptcy at his properties to help with taxes etc.  Casinos like this always win because slots are one of the biggest attractions and they can set the win percentage.  The casino was just old and with other new casinos coming in, it wasn't worth it to upgrade the casino.

Maybe there's more to the story of why it became bankrupt. There's some scandal or cheeky or shady operations stuff and the only way out is filing bankruptcy? The house definitely did not win here and maybe it's just closing a chapter on Trumps love or something.

There are lots of issues that revolved around Trump Plaza that lead to its bankruptcy.

If I recall correctly, during the early years of gambling, Atlantic City was one of those gambling havens that started the casino run, with Las Vegas being the number one city for gambling. Despite its growing popularity over the years, it substantially hit a growth slump with tourists not visiting such city/country. Along with the COVID and popularity of online gambling, the gambling empire of Trump was constrained to file for bankruptcy.

Not to mention, with all the legal battles and challenges that was revolving Donald Trump, most people would have preferred to gamble somewhere else. Before, his name carries great power and financial stability- but nowadays people view his name with legal disputes and challenges.

With all things considered, these are just some of the factors on why his gambling empire fell.

Since, it was a plaza offering more services and not just a casino, I wouldn't say the reason for its closure was because the house couldn't win enough but it was most probably because of a lack of proper management and other issues, maybe legal issues were involved as well. I'm saying this because I'm not aware of this and have no knowledge about it, but all I know is that a casino cannot get closed down because of losing, they don't lose more than they win, that's how casinos and gambling work.

A casino would always have enough funds so that they can compensate the winners that are playing on each table available, and they calculate the wins based on the highest bets so that they don't go bankrupt because of a player hitting a big win.

There's no solid chances than watching your own personal business grow to become steady stream of income for one. Atleast there will be stress for making money but it's done within your reach and not for some random persons. Every business faces challenges and some come out alive and stronger while some are dismantled following their instability to withstands the obstacles coming. Donald Trump is included in the lists for the powerful men in the world, making life accomplishments with businesses and investments around the world, also in politics and one time president of the United States of America who are world power, he's still coming to run again for presidency.

Gambling is profitable business so it is not surprising that rich people make gambling one of the businesses they are involved in, especially if in country that already has legal permits for gambling, everything will be easier.

Closure of Trump Plaza was actually not the cause of bankruptcy but because of problems that occurred and caused bad reputation.
And indeed everyone who knows gambling and really knows about Trump Plaza must be wondering and confused as to why casino of this size and which had clearly developed so well experienced collapse and had to be closed permanently.
If this is related to the house always winning then that is not true because the problems that arose and caused Trump Plaza to close were not due to bankruptcy caused by the winnings of the gamblers.

since I have played in the world of gambling, I have never seen a casino go bankrupt just because it was defeated by gamblers.
but I often hear of land based casinos or online casinos closing casinos simply because poor management causes a lot of debt and is unable to pay back the loans so the casino has to sell or close the casino.
in the case of the Trump Plaza casino, I had never heard of this casino before but I became curious after knowing this news and finding out about all the things that prompted the casino to choose to close the business but it seems to have been answered by other people here and the point is that the casino could went bankrupt but was not caused by the gamblers but was driven by other factors that caused the casino income and expenses to be unequal.

Thank you for this. Because I also thought that Trump owned that business.
Since that explained remarkably well I guess I will just focus on the question of OP.

Management will be one cause of bankruptcy. Because I truly doubt it will be because of the wrong house edge. We cannot win against the house, that's the sacred rule of a casino that will never be bent. There will always be money coming in for the gambling platform, physical or online.
I also doubt that it will be because of a lack of clients, customers, or gamblers. The gambling industry has been growing for the last few years so there will always be customers that will visit either the hotel or the gambling place.
Another case that could ruin a business like this is if investors are pulling out. We all know that it's not just one owner, there will always be investors that will buy a share and if they are gone, it could mean the fall of the business without money coming in or supporting it.

When it is said that the house always wins it is because of the big numbers. For the house, to run casino games that have an HE is EV+. But a casino is a business like any other and to keep it running other factors come into play, such as being able to attract enough customers to spend enough. Plus as mentioned Trump plaza was not just a casino.

Seems like Trump was just an investor plus a sort of spokesperson for the casino. Anyhow, there are a LOT of aspects of how a business can simply fall out of the competition imo. The simplest answer would simply be corrupt practices, thereby attracting close to zero positive revenue to the casino or just plain out lost in terms of competition. Can't exactly pinpoint what since I don't know how the business worked in the first place plus the competition of the area around it.

Businesses come and go so it's really nothing new. Especially in cases of a casino (or just an entertainment plaza in general), which rely on people wanting to go there, which increases the risks involved compared to say, businesses that are involved in selling goods.

Davidvictorson, already provided the information that Trump has nothing to do with the casino they used his name to become a popular casino, and in turn, Trump got a share of the revenue, that's the easiest way for Trump to make money out of his reputation so he has nothing to regret if it has blown up.
And in the question of the house always winning, they have the house edge so they are on the advantage against every player.

It's not their edge but the competition among casino owners especially in online casinos, big and well-established casinos are eating up the newly launched and small casinos and if the small casinos cannot keep up with the promotion they will likely close, same goes with physical casinos, they need to keep old clients coming back and new players coming in.

Online and offline casinos are profitable provided they can keep up with their marketing there's an influx of new players and they can maintain their reputation.

Every business has to face some difficult times and same happened with Trump Plaza. It's actually first time I'm hearing about Trump Plaza, but after reading about it I found that the plaza was a huge business back in the time when it was operating.

If we check more about Donald Trump as a person then I'm sure most of us will understand that he's one of the most iconic businessmen of the centaury because he tried many businesses and got success in those, however the Trump plaza is among his failed businesses that he also might regret to operate.

Trump plaza was a case of notoriously bad management but also corruption from the side of banks.
The data Trump submitted to loan for the creation of this company was exaggerated. The bankers that loaned to him were very greedy. Even though they could see through the fakery of the documents submitted by trump and his cronies, they went ahead to provide loans to his organization.

Trump's actions lead so many people to ruin. Contractors, companies, employees... In a way I'm sure these people wouldn't be sad to see part of his property seized in New York, even though it's a bit of Democrat theatrics.
The thing is that this business failed because of lack of demand on the hotel side. Maintenance and loan costs were too high, and most rooms empty. The casino side probably was earning more than costs, but couldn't cover everything.

According to the article the decline of the stated casino is due to the establishment of its sister company, the Trump Taj Mahal. It is more likely cannibalism since its sister company possibly won the interest of the Trump Plaza players leading to the decline of the Trump Plaza.  This is more on the management than the player winning over the house.

The not wisely planned purchase of properties around the casino also help in the bankruptcy of Trump Plaza, I think the management bites more than they can chew since they keep on spending money to acquire new properties while their currently acquired properties do not give them a good profit.

It is a rhetoric question I believe  ,I played all day up until night today and in different casinos I never felt the joy of winning,the only feeling I felt was the bitter feeling of losing deposit after deposit in all the so called reputable casinos which I think are changing the RTP as there is absolutely no way to be like that unless I am the most unlucky person in the world,it looks like that for sure and I feel very sad today yet I am very strong and I did this test on purpose to verify my way of getting out of gambling which appears to be the right thing to do nowadays.

My conclusion is that nowadays because of the bad economy also the casinos are suffering this from lower profits generated and thus making all people lose money,simply put don't gamble guys or if you do stfu and accept any outcome of your games.

Thanks all for your replies. Actually, I had not done much research on this specific case about the Trump Casino and simply thought it was fascinating to see a casino and resort being demolished after so much time of operation, because how we all are accustomed to hear the house does not lose money, specially in the long term.
At first I thought this casino was not directly under the management of Trump and his organization, though, it seems there was indeed some involvement beyond the usage of the name of Donald Trump. 

You know, within his political career, it has been said Trump has had baducknim any business he had tried, besides of Real state; he has tried to get into the business of alcohol beverages, He tried to found his own University, he also had his own brand of water and ice and of course gambling.
It seems he does not have much of luck for anything beyond politics and real state. Some could argue he does not have much of luck with women either, because of the rumors on his marriage.

Anyways. This house could have indeed lost for other different reasons beyond the profits of their gambling volume. 

The house never fails to maintain its advantage in the games. This advantage is determined by the rules of the game, the odds and how the game operates. One such game is blackjack, which gives the house an advantage of about 1% over the player.

Furthermore, it should be noted that players can often make mistakes that will eventually cause them losses. These errors can stem from a lack of understanding of the game's principles, an excessive desire to win money at any cost, or for example, wrong strategy.

Although casinos have many expenses in the form of rent, staff salaries, security, and equipment maintenance, this can be a significant factor on which a casino's profitability depends heavily, especially if Number of customers is not enough. Besides, they also have to compete if there are other casinos in the area

I also think that because of the other outlets of businesses under it could be a reason it failed.

Another is that at the time casino business may not have been a very big business as it is now with the growth in the game including the use of cryptocurrency and Blockchain that gave the players may freedom and privacy . So I'm sure if it were this time around, whoever is managing it won't allow the casino part to go down. Of course the house always wins and that means with the rate of patronage more capital will be generated to run the casino.

However, there are more to this story like I wonder why Trump would file a case to remove his name from business or is he being impersonated or he had a time limit to use his name on the contract that has expired 

I can imagine that to be true. I mean, yeah it seems kinda weird more regular casinos haven't jumped on the online bandwagon.  Running an actual building has gotta cost a freaking fortune - rent, staff, security guards.  It's a real headache.  The online thing just seems easier and  and you can get people all over playing not just whoever can make it into the casino that day.   

But I guess some of the old school casinos are probably kinda freaked out about competing with the resto of the online platforms.  Still seems short-sighted if you ask me.  Seems like itd be smart to let people play the same games online if they can't make it out to their favorite slots or table games.  Win-win, right? 

Anyway, online casinos are probably the future whether the big guys like it or not.  More convenient for everyone.  The physical places will still get the die hards and tourists and stuff.

There could be many reasons for the closedown of a gambling casino, some people may see it as a non profitable business anymore and thereby close down the casino for other thing, some may consider their reputation and what others may say concerning what they have as an establishment in other not to make such tarnish their reputation s well as been a source of weak point for their opponents to strike at them, so i will not like to adopt the fact that it was the loss on house edge that caused this closedown.

From what I know so far, the factors that cause land-based casinos to go bankrupt are usually management that is no longer in line and also when management changes, there is a lot of disagreement. The case of Trump Plaza is not much different because during the process Trump may need more funds to develop this casino in addition to his need to spend on political costs.


you might be missing something : Owner Trump Entertainment Resorts

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Plaza_Hotel_and_Casino

and this : Trump Entertainment : Donald Trump (founder)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Entertainment_Resorts

I can't say anything about this case in particular, but it's not impossible for a casino of this height to bankrupt. Keep in mind the more you have, and the more sophisticated your businesses become, more expensive are going to be the maintenance costs to keep it working. There are a lot of recurrent expenses to pay in order to keep a casino like that operating: employees, taxes, repairs...

I'm sure it has something to do with external factors.

Yes, there are other casinos on the same situation as well. After COVID pandemic, many businesses struggled to continue operating and decided to shut down their services. I believe to run a land based casino is much more challenging than managing an online platform.

Three Las Vegas-Area Casinos to Be Demolished for Land Sales

Well, it doesn't seem strange to me, Donald Trump has always been lying like hell, his hotel chain, his casino, maybe he preferred to leave the casino business because they needed a lot more money to get into politics, he is an investor and you can't deny that he has a high Financial education, he is one of those businessmen who always gives his lectures with very good financial advice, for me in that sense he is very good, he still has many things to do, in fact he Caught my Attention Because Trump in his life He didn't want to be a politician or anything like that, it just occurred to him and he managed to be president, so what I can learn the most from him is his way of focusing on things to achieve them.

Only he knows why he declared Bankruptcy, Trump has many Mysteries and he is also a very impulsive person, Trump's change of plans is just that he and God know , what I Know is that if he Decided to do Without the casino it is Because he had Something much bigger in mind.

As I understand the real intention of OP. He is questioning the saying "the house always wins" due to this Trump Plaza was previously a casino that shut down and took over so he is questioning if the house always wins then why the previous casino shut down and why did the new owner doesn't bother to save the casino instead it rebuilt for another purpose.



Yes, No doubt about this, Casinos always win against players but casinos real opponent in their business is their operational cost which is too costly while their income is decreasing due to few players.

This is pretty typical of businesses that Donald Trump runs.  I haven't really made it a secret that I absolutely despise the "man" that is Donny T, but this isn't a political post, this is about gambling and that's one thing that I never understood.  How the heck can you bankrupt a business where you're guaranteed to come out on top.  I have no idea how popular the casinos was however, so assuming that played a role in it.

a casino is also a business and in all businesses it has operational costs, in the case of casinos although they always win when it comes to games of chance, they still have many operational costs like for example in a physical casino and the owner of the physical casino pays electricity and if you look, you will notice that inside the casinos they have a lot of lights, they have a lot of machines, electricity consumption is very high in physical casinos, in physical casinos they pay for water. They pay a construction company to maintain the casino building. in the physical casino they pay taxes to the governments every month, in the physical casinos they pay salaries to the employees, which are many employees in the physical casinos. We probably won't see news of casinos being demolished

Because in most cases of bankrupt physical casinos, they are sold and the future owner modifies the building and runs another business, unlike this Trump case. So the fact that the house always wins is not something that would prevent a casino from going bankrupt. With many casinos that exist today, running the casino business involves many challenges, customers may be few and the casino may have little profit and at the end of the day it may go bankrupt. This applies to physical casinos and online casinos, and that's why the owners of physical casinos now have hotels and inside their hotels they have casinos because that way they can make a profit from tourism.

In my opinion, the problem is not with the casinos, but with Trump, who did not know how to conduct his business well, as the President of the United States has a long history of failures on his resume. Six of his companies have already filed for bankruptcy. His Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City declared bankruptcy in 1991. Two other Trump casinos also went bankrupt, along with the Plaza Hotel in New York. Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts declared bankruptcy in 2004, with a debt of US$1.8 billion, in addition to Trump Entertainment Resorts, which went bankrupt in 2009.
Is it a coincidence? I don't think so!

Remembering that Trump used dishonest practices from the beginning, because to attract an entertainment company to invest in the construction of his casino, he invited executives from the company Harrah's, owner of the Holiday Inn hotel chain, to visit land already acquired and He ordered that, during the visit, his employees pretend that the land was an active construction site. Workers dug holes in the ground and pushed wheelbarrows back and forth for no reason as Harrah’s executives watched.

We can't see that the house loses and the casino goes bankrupt or that the house never loses and the casino can't go bankrupt, there are many factors that can cause a casino to go bankrupt like what you said, maybe on tea managerial issues, losing competitiveness and many more factors that can make the casino go out of business. The house not losing is not a guarantee that they will not go bankrupt.

The business world is not that simple, there are many things that can cause a business to go bankrupt. The house never loses does not guarantee that a casino will never go bankrupt, a simple enough sentence but we don't look at just one aspect that makes it strong so we forget that the big line lies on the other side.

I am in the same side with you on this because casinos are designed to favor the owners(I do not have any evidence to support this, just my observation). I find it strange that casino will be bankrupt, not even a big casino like the one being described and with big names involved, names that will put confidence in the heart of rich people to use the casinos. Maybe it is possible there could be sabotage from the inside, a case of leaking of insider information to cripple the casino.

This should be the biggest threat casinos are facing now. The number of people visiting physical casinos have reduced and the people visiting are mostly low income owners. I am speaking with respect to my location. The growth of online casinos he is fast and most casinos are now paying more attention to their online platforms. This could possibly be part of the reason for the collapse of this casino.

Donald Trump is well known for business malpractices and tax invasions. He has been accused of inflating the worth of his companies to deceive investors or increase his debt in some cases to invade tax. There were reports that he put in little of his money but collected millions as bonuses and salaries while he shifted debts to investors. He was just a smart man who used the casino as an avenue to invade tax and cheat investors. I don't think he was passionate about the casino business which might be why the it failed.

Donald Trump was the owner of The Trump Plaza Casino and Hotel which was founded in 1985 until the company went bankrupt. It was in August 2014 that Donald Trump got a court judgment that removed his name from the company's casinos. Before the judgment, he was fully involved in the casino business.

There's likely more to the story - there always is.  But an over-eagerness to line ones own pockets while neglecting the product is a tale as old as time in business.  And for casinos especially, greed can become an addiction in itself.  In the case of Trump Plaza, that addiction clearly exacted a heavy cost.


From wikipedia article:


No, I havn't. But I bet this isn't the first time something like this has happened, and it probably won't be the last.

The OP has a point but could have gone ahead to build on it . Are there casinos that have gone out of business? I think so. He should have highlighted it and gone ahead to state the cause for this. In the case of the above, it was more about ownership tussle like you have said. There are other things that could destroy a casino that has nothing to do with gambling but operational issues.

This is not even directly related to casinos, cause the plaza was offering a lot more services which were the main focus at the time, the casino was not fully operational at any point in time.

There are also too many legal cases and switch in ownership that I cannot find the moral of the story anymore or how it relates to the house not winning all the time.

- Jay -

I agree that the house always wins in any casino because it is they who design the rules of the game system and all forms of things that make them lose in the game they will not experience it, but talking about business does not only see that, we need to look at other aspects in seeing the development of a company, be it a casino.
In addition to problems in management that may occur such as corruption or others that make casinos lose big that have an impact on the liquidity of casino funds and make them bankrupt, and yes as far as I know casino taxes are also large in addition to the situation of customers who prefer online casinos it will have an impact on the development of offline casinos, competition is very tight because the ofline casino needs to spend more and for operations while online casinos are not like that, It is much cheaper operationally for the company, and yes most likely most gamblers switch to online casinos for their gambling activities which results in these online casinos losing revenue and in the end have to suffer losses because the operational expenditure is very large while the revenue is very small due to the impact of losing customers.

House always win. There’s no way a house can lose on games that designed with house advantage plus human error distribution on players side. Casino can hit a severe bankruptcy if there’s no much player entering in the casino due to competition while their fixed expenses on running a casino is greater to their profit.

They are paying taxes and other fees too which is why operating a physical casino is very expensive and risky if there’s a lot of competitors in the area.

The rise of online casino might be another reason on why some physical casino decreases customers.

I haven't thought about Trump this week and now this brings him to mind. Lol. He may well be the first person in history whose casino goes bankrupt. Poor leadership can lead to bankruptcy of a business and being in so much debt can be as a result of poor leadership. I wonder how a casino can go bankrupt when they always win. This should be a case study in a business school. Last I heard of the Trump casino, it has been closed since 2014.

*Edit: Trump had nothing to do with the casino as his name being used. He wasn't involved in it operations. So I take my word back.

Good afternoon to all of you. I hope you are all having a lovely Easter and Ramandan.
The other day I was reading around Wikipedia about gambling and through my casual investigation I realized the celebrity and real state billionaire Donald Trump was also within the business of casino and luxurious resorts in the United States.
Donald Trump is specially famous not only because he managed to win the presidency of the United States, but also because of the numerous companies and enterprises he has got himself into, in the case the business of casinos.

What caught my attention about his casino is the fact it seems not to have been in the mind of the Trump organization to save the casino from its end (in comparison to other successful resorts) and it was actually demolished in the end.
One must wonder what happened for a casino of this level and category to get in bankruptcy?
Do you think this is one of the few cases when the house did not win or perhaps it had something to do with factors external to the casino snd it's management?
Have you ever heard about casinos this big failing to the point they need to be completely demolished before? Because I have not.

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Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Plaza_Hotel_and_Casino