Ranking the Top 7 Casinos That Went Under

Those who enjoy casino gambling imagine that those operations are a license to print money—a sure thing, in other words. And just how dumb do you have to be to lose money on a sure thing?

Well, some brilliant people managed to do that in a big way. Today, we all have our safe online casinos to retreat to, but it’s still hard to believe that some of the country’s greatest American Glitz & Glamor monuments have gone the way of the passenger pigeon.

In any case, below are seven of the biggest casinos that failed.

The Sands was ahead of the 2014 rush to file BK, pleading for Chapter 11 (“reorganization”) protection years before the bankruptcy tsunami overwhelmed a third of the city’s casino hotels.

Opening in 1980 as the Brighton Hotel & Casino, it was the fourth casino to be erected in Atlantic City after the 1977 legalization of gambling in New Jersey.

In 1981, the property was sold to Dallas-based hotel operator Inns of the Americas, which had recently purchased the Sands in Las Vegas. The Brighton was immediately renamed Sands Atlantic City. A-list performers entertained high rollers in the Sands Atlantic City’s showrooms.

The troubled property operated under several different ownership/management teams. By 2006 it was performing poorly. In May of 2006, Pinnacle Entertainment purchased the casino with plans to demolish it and build a bigger casino hotel on the property.

On the evening of October 17, 2007, the Sands was imploded before a cheering crowd after an extended display of fireworks.

One of the first casinos in Atlantic City to fail in 2014—when nearly a third of all casinos in that city filed for bankruptcy protection—the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel started life in 1980 as the Golden Nugget.

The brainchild of Steve Wynn, it was the sixth casino built in Atlantic City after the 1977 legalization of gambling in New Jersey.

The hotel had 506 rooms. The Opera House’s entertainment venue hosted performers like Frank Sinatra and Dolly Parton. By 1983 the Golden Nugget was Atlantic City’s biggest-earning casino.

But Wynn had problems with the state gaming regulators, and in 1987 the Golden Nugget was sold to Bally Manufacturing, which rebranded the hotel-casino as Bally’s Grand Hotel and Casino.

The property went through several owners; in 2011, it was renamed ACH Casino Resort. Then in 2012, it was renamed the Atlantic Club and was marketed as a “locals casino.” In less than two years, the operation went bankrupt.

Tropicana Entertainment bought the casino’s fixtures and gambling equipment, while Caesars Entertainment bought the building itself.

Just an aside here, but oddly enough, none of the biggest casinos in the world made this list. Maybe big is better?

Even though the Showboat in Atlantic City closed its doors in 2014, it was a bit of an exception.

Owned by Harrah’s, the Showboat was profitable in 2014. Still, Harrah’s made a strategic decision to shut it down to boost the business of its other gaming properties in Atlantic City.

And those other properties absorbed a larger percentage of Showboat’s former employees. The property itself was less fortunate; it was bought to convert to a college campus, then sold and re-opened as a non-gambling hotel.

As of 2022, the property originally known as the Showboat Hotel and Casino does business now as Showboat Atlantic City. Still, it serves only as a hotel and arcade gaming establishment.

With these casinos that folded, you might be hesitant to head to a land-based casino so why not try out the best new slot games below.

Of all the casinos in Atlantic City that went bankrupt, the Revel Casino Hotel Atlantic City was inarguably the shortest-lived.

It opened in 2012 next door to the Showboat; Revel had already closed its doors in 2014. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection twice during its brief existence.

Whatever management shortcomings handicapped the casino’s operation also interfered with finding a viable new owner during the Chapter 11 reorganization.

Numerous renovations, improvements, and even opening dates were announced, but the property never opened again for business under that ownership.

The property was purchased in early 2018 by developer Bruce Deifik’s AC Ocean Walk and was renamed Ocean Resort Casino. It officially opened under that name in 2018.

The property is owned by Luxor Capital Group LP and operates under Ocean Casino Resort.

Initially built in 1996 as the Grand Casino Tunica, this hotel-casino also featured an RV park, a golf course, three different hotels, and a huge poker room.

In 1998, Grand Casino Tunica was sold along with several other Mississippi gambling properties to Park Place Entertainment—which was later renamed Caesars Entertainment.

While various companies absorbed or were absorbed by Caesars Entertainment, the Grand Casino Tunica was renamed Harrah’s Casino Tunica in 2007.

In 2014, after what Caesars Entertainment regional vice-president Scott Barber called “seven consecutive years of year over year declines,” the property ceased operations.

Although numerous renovations, rehabilitations, sales, etc., have been proposed since then, the property remains vacant and unused and why its featured on our list of casinos that went bankrupt.

We can mourn some—if not all—of the other failed casinos on this list, but of all the casinos that went bankrupt in the recent past, the Lucky Dragon seems most deserving of that fate.

With a combination of mismanagement, poor planning, and misguided marketing, Lucky Dragon Las Vegas opened its doors to great fanfare in early 2016.

By February 2018, they were filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. While its hotel and gift shop remained open, its primary source of income—the casino—was closed.

However, the property management was not up to the job—barely a year after opening, more than 100 employees (including management, bar, and wait staff) had been fired.

For a boutique operation like the Lucky Dragon, that represented a sacking of about 20% of its full-time employees.

The property had benefited from various US government assistance programs and subsidies from local and state agencies. Still, the influx of government funds did nothing to stave off impending disaster.

In late 2018, a company by the name of Snow Covered Capital had the winning bid in the bankruptcy auction of the Lucky Dragon property.

For a couple of years, lawsuits flew at the Lucky Dragon and Snow Covered Capital from the property’s various vendors, investors, and creditors.

In early 2019, Don Ahern—the CEO of a local construction firm—bought the Lucky Dragon property for $36 million.  By late 2019, the property—now named the Ahern Hotel and Convention Center—opened its doors. It is still in operation today.

Of all the casinos that went bankrupt, the Riviera in Las Vegas has the most interesting backstory.

Right off, the Riviera filed for bankruptcy in the same year it opened—in 1955. Originally the brainchild of Detroit mobster William Bischoff (as “the Casa Blanca”), it was taken over during bankruptcy proceedings (three months after first opening its doors) by Gus Greenbaum, a member of the Chicago mob.

The resort casino stayed solvent for the next two decades (although Greenbaum and his wife would be just two of the many people murdered in that timeframe, victims of the internecine wars waged among the various mobs).

AITS, Inc. (controlled by Meshulam Riklis and Isidore Becker) bought the Riviera in 1973, adding the Monte Carlo Tower and the San Remo Tower to the hotel in the following years.

The property endured two more bankruptcies in 1983 and another in 2010. At that point, it was managed by Paragon Gaming. The property continued to lose money.

In 2015, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) purchased the Riviera and its real property for $182 million. They scheduled a series of demolitions for the casino, the hotel towers, and associated outbuildings, and those demolitions were carried out in May and August of 2016.

While the LVCVA recently sold 10 acres of the Riviera property, the entire property remains vacant as of 2022.

Want to learn more about land-based casinos? Here’s a breakdown of what to expect the next time you choose to gamble in person.