Earlier this week, UNITE HERE Local 54, Atlantic City’s main union, reached a new labor agreement with Bally’s Atlantic City, marking the completion of contract negotiations with all nine casinos in the city. Each of these agreements spans a single year.
The short durations of the contracts reflect ongoing uncertainties within the market, facing increased competition from New York City’s expanding casino industry as well as New Jersey’s significant online gaming sector. Typically, such labor contracts span three or more years – the previous round of negotiations took place in 2022.
Donna DeCaprio, President of Local 54, expressed pride in the negotiating committee, members, and staff, stating, "We are proud of our negotiating committee, our members and our staff who stood up and fought to maintain and improve the contractual pay, benefit and employment standards that make these jobs good union jobs."
With negotiations pausing for a year, it may become clearer what the competitive environment will look like in the wake of New York’s casinos. Currently, Resorts World NYC stands as the only operational casino in the area, generating approximately $30 million weekly in gross gaming revenue during its first three months. If this trend continues, it would amount to around $1.5 billion in annual gross gaming revenue from just that one establishment. In comparison, Atlantic City’s nine casinos accumulated $2.8 billion in gross gaming revenue in 2025 and $1.5 billion in the first half of this year.
While the presence of Resorts World poses a challenge for Atlantic City, the development timelines for two other New York casino licensees, Metropolitan Park and Bally’s Bronx, appear more uncertain than expected. Both have projected a single-phase opening for 2030. However, Metropolitan Park was already behind schedule as of spring, and Bally's is currently facing financing challenges for its $4 billion project.
The recent labor contracts coincide with a concerning economic report released by the Atlantic County Economic Alliance. This report, titled the Greater Atlantic City Casino-Hotel Employment Exposure Assessment, suggests that over 8,000 jobs may be lost by 2035 due to competition from New York City in a worst-case scenario, defined as “Stress.” This potential loss would represent more than a third of Atlantic City’s casino workforce, which currently stands around 21,100.
In less dire scenarios, like the “Central” projection, about 5,100 jobs could be at risk, while the optimistic “Blue Sky” scenario anticipates around 1,500 jobs at stake. Presently, employment levels are at their lowest in nearly a decade, even dipping below the lows seen post-COVID pandemic.
The report assessed five factors but based its modeling on four:
1. Competition from three New York casinos.
2. A potential recession in the U.S. economy.
3. Possible in-state expansion from new casinos at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park, which have faced rejection in the past and will not appear on the ballot until 2026.
4. Online gambling competition within the state.
Dr. Max Slusher, who prepared the report, stated, "This analysis is an exposure assessment, not a prediction. It does not say that a specific number of jobs will disappear on a specific date. It asks a planning question: how much of Atlantic City’s 2025 bricks & mortar casino-floor revenue base is exposed if several pressures land on the region at the same time?"
Simultaneously, the statewide growth of New Jersey’s iGaming industry poses its own challenges to Atlantic City. While casino revenue remains stable alongside online earnings, the consistent double-digit growth rates for iGaming have led to ongoing debates about revenue cannibalization.
In 2025, online revenues hit $2.9 billion, marking the first year that iGaming outpaced retail casino revenue. Up to July this year, online revenues reached $1.8 billion, reflecting a 14.5% increase year-over-year. However, despite these gains, Atlantic City casinos encountered a 15% drop in operating profits during the first half of 2026 compared to the previous year, even as overall revenue improved.
James Plousis, chair of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, remarked, "The casino hotels encountered their highest second-quarter costs and expenses in nine years, significantly constraining reported gross operating profits."
