Mohegan Leaving Atlantic City by End of the Year
With New Jersey online gamblers still having to wrap their heads around Unibet leaving the Garden State, it appears they will have to do the same for Unibet’s sponsored casino, Mohegan, to pull out of Atlantic City by the close of 2024. Since entering New Jersey in 2012, well before the great American online casino boom, Mohegan, a Native American tribe from Connecticut, initially invested 10% for the Resorts Hotel, one of the oldest casinos and resorts in Atlantic City.
Their entrance came two years after ownership changed hands after a $30 million+ deal to help it rebound from stiff competition from the booming Pennsylvania market and the Great Recession. However, once they leave Resorts Casino, the plan is to maintain a 10% stake.
It remains to be seen who will come and fill the vacuum that Mohegan will leave with the iconic Resorts Casino and Hotel. Whoever the new management team is will be under pressure to prevent future casino and hotel closures. In the years that Mohegan took the reigns at Resorts and Casino Hotel, they guided it to safe and profitable shores while five Atlantic City Casinos and hotels were forced to shutter for good in the wake of the Great Recession.
While the reasons are unclear why they are pulling out of the hotel management side of things, it appears that Mohegan plans to maintain and operate its official online casino brand, Mohegan Sun. It makes sense to maintain an online presence when you consider that in 2023, New Jersey online casinos helped to contribute to nearly $6 billion in profits, along with retail casinos and sportsbooks.
Mohegan Sun’s online casino has five levels in its Stellar Rewards program, with the Eclipse level being the highest. New Jersey players can exchange their rewards points for luxury meals and a hotel stay in Atlantic City. Mohegan Sun also offers a sensational number of promotions, including daily free spins.
With such competition, it is becoming much more complicated for New Jersey’s nine remaining retail casinos to rebound successfully. The statistics provided by New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement show that since the Great Recession, when several casinos shutdown, and especially since the abrupt casino shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, the brick-and-mortar casinos aren’t generating the same levels of revenue. Undoubtedly, a lot of this has to do with the rise of the American iGaming sector that collectively generated well over $60 billion in casino games and sports betting wagers.
New Jersey was the first state to launch online gambling in 2013. Today, the Garden State has over 30 licensed online casinos, by far the most of any other state that regulates online casinos.
