ACEA Report Warns Atlantic City Casino-Hotel Job Base Faces Major Exposure From Online Gaming and NYC and NJ Casino Expansion

Up to 8,005 jobs and $1.8 billion in regional economic output could be placed at risk by 2035 without a state strategy to protect South Jersey’s physical gaming and hospitality economy.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (August 25, 2026) — The Atlantic County Economic Alliance (ACEA) today released the Greater Atlantic City Casino-Hotel Employment Exposure Assessment, a first-of-its-kind regional economic study warning that Atlantic City's physical casino-hotel economy, already at a nine-year employment low, faces a stacking set of competitive threats that could strip thousands more jobs from the region by 2035, and because Atlantic City's casino floors contribute to the state's Casino Revenue Fund dollars, could also erode the funding for property-tax relief, prescription assistance, transportation, and long-term care programs relied on by residents in all 21 New Jersey counties. The findings were reviewed by a panel of casino industry pundits prior to release to verify the accuracy of the report's data, modeling, and conclusions.

"ACEA is responsible for the health of Atlantic County's economy, and that responsibility means giving our leaders more than an educated guess," said Lauren Moore, President of the ACEA. "We invested extensive time and resources to produce this report because decisions of this magnitude affecting thousands of hardworking New Jerseyans and two important revenue sources for New Jersey, casino gaming and the conventions and meetings market, must be grounded in real data and facts, not speculation."

The report, authored by Dr. Max Slusher, Director of Business Development for ACEA, models what happens when online gaming growth, new full-scale casinos in New York City, and two proposed North Jersey casino-hotels at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park land on Atlantic City's casino floor at the same time and concludes that even without new in-state casino competition, 5,105 Atlantic County jobs are already at risk of exposure, including many union positions, and the exposure extends beyond casino-hotel employees to the indirect jobs and businesses, from linen and laundry services to food suppliers, that support the casino industry throughout South Jersey.

"This is a planning document, not a doomsday prophecy," Slusher states. “But the size of the exposure is real, and the region needs to see it clearly before more competitive pressure is added. History has taught us that Atlantic City is resilient and can absorb one shock at a time. But the region cannot absorb five monumental challenges stacking on top of each other unless we develop a plan. We built four planning cases instead of a single forecast, so decision-makers can see the full range of what is at stake, and act before the choice is made for them.”

A REGION SPLIT IN TWO: RECORD STATEWIDE TAX REVENUE, RECORD-LOW LOCAL EMPLOYMENT

The report's starting point is a paradox playing out in real time. In 2025, New Jersey's statutory Casino Revenue Fund, which by law funds property-tax relief, prescription assistance, transportation, and long-term care for seniors and disabled residents statewide, collected $801.5 million in real 2025 dollars, the highest total in the 47-year history of casino gaming in New Jersey. That is a 25 percent increase in a single year and up 124 percent over six years. Total New Jersey gaming revenue hit a record $6.98 billion, and statewide casino-related gaming taxes and fees topped $1.1 billion. Both records were driven overwhelmingly by online gaming's growth; a channel the report finds generates high tax yield but comparatively few local jobs, leaving the fund's continued growth increasingly dependent on bracing a bricks-and-mortar workforce that is slowly contracting over time.

Direct Atlantic City casino-hotel employment fell to 21,172 jobs in April 2026, the lowest reading in the nine-year employment panel, and below even the April 2021 pandemic-era trough of 21,484 jobs. In 2025, online gaming revenue ($2.91 billion) surpassed bricks-and-mortar Atlantic City casino revenue ($2.89 billion) for the first time ever. Real bricks-and-mortar casino revenue is now down 63.7 percent from its 2006 peak.

"The money is still flowing to Trenton. The same level of work is not flowing to Atlantic City households," the report states, explaining that online gaming generates far more tax revenue per dollar than it does local jobs, because a physical casino-hotel requires dealers, housekeepers, cooks, security, and hotel staff that an online platform does not.

"This report confirms what we see on our casino floors and in our hotel operations every day: Atlantic City's casino-hotels aren't just gaming revenue for the state; they're thousands of family-sustaining jobs and the backbone of the Casino Revenue Fund that seniors and disabled residents across New Jersey depend on,” said George Goldhoff, President of the Casino Association of New Jersey and President of Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. “We aren't asking anyone to stop competition — we're asking the state to plan for it responsibly, so that the workers who show up every day to deal cards, clean rooms, and serve our guests aren't the ones who pay the price for growth happening somewhere else. Our industry is ready to be part of the solution, but only if Trenton acts before, not after, the exposure this report describes becomes reality."

FIVE PRESSURES, FOUR PLANNING SCENARIOS: WHAT'S DRIVING THE EXPOSURE

Using the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Input-Output Modeling System (RIMS II), the report identifies five distinct competitive pressures converging on Atlantic City's casino-hotel economy, and models four of them directly against the region's $2.89 billion 2025 bricks-and-mortar revenue base:

• Online gaming substitution: Continued migration of casino play from the Atlantic City floor to phones and computers.
• New York City casinos: Three full-scale New York City casinos drawing regional bricks-and-mortar play away from Atlantic City.
• Two North Jersey casinos: Proposed bricks-and-mortar casino-hotels at the Meadowlands (Bergen County) and Monmouth Park (Monmouth County) a decade after New Jersey voters rejected a similar measure by 77.5 to 22.5 percent in 2016.
• A recession overlay: A future U.S. recession would not create new exposure on its own but would accelerate the timeline, pulling 2035-level exposure forward into as early as 2030.
• The unmodeled worst case: A full Meadowlands convention, casino, and hotel complex combined with a Monmouth Park casino and hotel, a scenario the report names but does not model, warns would be worse than any of the four modeled cases, approximately on par with the great Atlantic City casino-hotel contraction of 2013 to 2016.

The report combines these pressures into four planning cases. Even in the "Central" case, the adopted baseline, which assumes no North Jersey casino expansion at all, places 5,105 Atlantic County jobs and $814.6 million in bricks-and-mortar casino revenue at risk of exposure by 2035. Layering in the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park casinos moves the region into the "Stress" case: 8,005 jobs, $1.805 billion in regional output, and 44.2 percent of the region's 2025 casino-floor revenue base placed in exposure.

Table: What the four planning cases mean for Atlantic County by 2035

Source: New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement 2025 data; U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis RIMS II, Type II final-demand multipliers, NAICS 721000, Atlantic County, as cited in the report.

A DISTRESSED REGION SQUARED OFF AGAINST NEW JERSEY'S WEALTHIEST COUNTIES

The report identifies a stark mismatch behind the North Jersey casino push: the two proposed host counties are among the wealthiest in New Jersey, while Atlantic County is among the most distressed. Atlantic County's median household income of $76,819 ranks 19th of the state's 21 counties, roughly 60 percent below Bergen County ($122,232) and Monmouth County ($122,727), the two proposed casino host counties.

On the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs' Municipal Revitalization Index, Atlantic County ranks the 3rd-most-distressed of 21 counties, while Bergen ranks 18th and Monmouth ranks 17th. At the municipal level, Atlantic City ranks 5th-most-distressed of New Jersey's 565 municipalities, and neighboring Pleasantville ranks 12th, placing two of the state's twelve most distressed municipalities inside a single county. Atlantic County's poverty rate is nearly double that of Bergen and Monmouth counties, and its unemployment rate is roughly 50 percent higher.

"A policy that exposes the highest-yielding revenue stream feeding [the Casino Revenue Fund] would not only harm the Greater Atlantic City region," the report warns. "It could weaken a statewide social safety net through unintended substitution from online gaming to North Jersey bricks-and-mortar gaming."

“The findings of this report underscore just how much is at stake for Atlantic City and the broader South Jersey economy,” said Danielle Norcross, President and CEO of the Greater Atlantic City Chamber. “The potential loss of thousands of jobs and more than a billion dollars in regional economic activity would not stop at the casino doors. Our casino industry supports an entire ecosystem of small businesses — restaurants, retailers, contractors, suppliers, professional service firms, and countless others that depend on a strong Atlantic City economy. When the casino industry is impacted, the effects ripple throughout our business community and the communities those businesses support. Atlantic City has been an economic engine for this state for decades, and we should not compound the pressures it already faces by creating additional risk to that economic foundation. New Jersey should be investing in the assets we already have, strengthening Atlantic City’s competitive position and accelerating the diversification of our regional economy. We cannot afford to wait until these projections become reality to act.”

WHY CAN TAX REVENUE RISE WHILE LOCAL JOBS DISAPPEAR?

The report's modeling shows the online and bricks-and-mortar gaming models simply do not support the same number of local jobs. The report finds that reallocating $1 million of gaming spending from a physical Atlantic City casino-hotel to the online channel supports 30.6 percent fewer direct-and-supplier jobs in Atlantic County, 3.66 full-time-equivalent jobs per $1 million online versus 5.28 for bricks-and-mortar. Many of the direct jobs at risk are union positions, and the supplier jobs captured in this modeling include linen and laundry services, food and beverage suppliers, and other South Jersey businesses that depend on a steady flow of casino-hotel business.

The report also finds that almost seven in ten Atlantic City casino-hotel workers, 69.5 percent, or 14,723 of the 21,172 jobs reported statewide, live in just five Atlantic County communities: Atlantic City, Pleasantville, Egg Harbor Township, Galloway Township, and Hamilton Township, meaning any further job losses would land hard on a small and already-strained set of local communities.

THE CONVENTION MARKET: ATLANTIC CITY'S BEST AND ONLY PARTIAL LIFELINE

If thousands of casino-hotel jobs are placed in exposure, the report asks a hard follow-up question: where can displaced workers go?

The strongest local absorption channel identified in the report is Atlantic City's convention and meetings market. The city offers 1,831,333 square feet of meeting space citywide. In 2025, Visit Atlantic City booked 205 events generating 533,242 attendees, 328,067 room nights, and $362.3 million in direct economic impact, up 17.2 percent over three years.

"Banquet servers, culinary staff, room attendants, audio-visual technicians, transportation workers, and front-of-house staff can move into convention and meeting work more readily than into online gaming platform jobs," the report notes. "The absorption is partial, not complete. However, it is the largest on-the-ground absorption channel the region has."

Critically, the report warns that the very same North Jersey casino proposals under consideration would not only compete for casino play, but they would also compete for the convention business Atlantic City needs to absorb its own displaced workforce stemming from online gaming attrition.

A 2023 feasibility study for a proposed Meadowlands convention complex identifies the identical market segment as its target, and projects more than $3.5 billion in capturable taxes over 30 years from a Meadowlands convention center, headquarters hotel, and two additional hotels.

That study also found that labor costs are nearly 50 percent higher at New York's Javits Center than in Atlantic City, a cost advantage a Meadowlands facility would likely replicate, undercutting one of Atlantic City's few remaining competitive edges.

PROTECTING NEW JERSEY'S CASINO REVENUE FUND: THE REPORT'S FOUR RECOMMENDATIONS

The report's bottom line is not that competitive change should be blocked; it is that change must be managed before Atlantic City's physical economy, and the statewide Casino Revenue Fund it feeds, breaks.

"The gaming sector is performing better than ever; do not interfere with what is already working well," the report states, arguing that New Jersey should not add new in-state bricks-and-mortar competition on top of an already-fragile regional economy without putting protections in place. The report makes four concrete recommendations:

1. Fund convention-led hospitality reinvestment. Strengthen Atlantic City's convention, meetings, and non-gaming tourism product, including city improvements and beautification, so bricks-and-mortar gaming becomes one attraction among many, rather than the sole foundation of the destination.

2. Continue incentives for reinvestment in the physical casino-hotel destination. Gaming floors, convention and meeting spaces, and hotel rooms remain critical pieces of the local tourism product and should continue to receive investment support.

3. Exclude in-state bricks-and-mortar casino-hotel expansion from the policy menu until Casino Revenue Fund protection mechanisms are designed and funded, and proactive diversification policies, including significant worker retraining, social and family aid, and protections for union jobs and the indirect businesses that support the casino-hotel industry, are in place for Atlantic City, Pleasantville, Egg Harbor Township, Hamilton Township, and Galloway Township.

4. Treat immediate regional economic diversification and living-wage job creation as urgent priorities. Environmental constraints, gaming-labor attrition, and local socioeconomic distress require immediate economic stabilization, followed by diversification into business sectors outside gaming and tourism.

"This is an argument for managing that change before the physical economy, and the statewide Casino Revenue Fund it supports, breaks," the report concludes.

ABOUT THE REPORT

The Greater Atlantic City Casino-Hotel Employment Exposure Assessment (July 20, 2026) is an independent regional economic exposure analysis, not a prediction. It uses the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Input-Output Modeling System, Second Edition (RIMS II) to translate modeled casino-floor revenue exposure into jobs, earnings, output, and value added for Atlantic County and the eight-county Southern New Jersey region. The full report includes detailed methodology, multiplier tables, a ZIP-code employment panel, 50 years of gaming-win history, a convention-market inventory, a three-county socioeconomic comparison, and 14 supporting appendices. An executive synopsis and the full report are both available at www.aceanj.com/report.

About the Atlantic County Economic Alliance

The Atlantic County Economic Alliance is a private sector-directed, nonprofit economic development corporation that was established in 2017 for business attraction, retention, and marketing efforts in Atlantic County. ACEA’s core focus areas are building a robust business retention program, marketing competitive assets to drive industry diversification, relationship building to attract new companies, and creating partnerships to recruit, retain, and promote a qualified workforce. Visit www.aceanj.com or call 609-245-0019 for more information.