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With internet and sports gaming revenues included, casino licenses reported near-record single total month gross gaming revenue, however this landmark is overshadowed by the reality that much of this revenue is generated by internet operations and is more likely to benefit third-party operators. At $210 million, brick-and-mortar gaming revenue totals for April 2025 were some of the worst single month returns in several years.

With first quarter 2025 we continue to see a disconnect between gross gaming and net gaming revenues. Despite record and near-record total gross gaming returns to start the year, operators ended the quarter with net revenues less than the same periods in 2024 and 2023 — breaking a three-year trend of year-over-year growth in first quarter returns following the pandemic. Given the popularity of internet gaming and the necessity of sharing these revenues with third-party vendors, Atlantic City’s casino operators have been, perhaps, keeping less of the total gross gaming revenues than ever before.

Unsurprisingly, as a result of these declines paired with higher operating costs, first quarter 2025 gross operating profits ($131.97 million) were approximately 15% behind the same period in 2024 ($155.42 million). This is still notably an improvement over 2019 when the nine casino properties realized $85.67 million in GOP for the period.

First-quarter occupancy rates in 2025 (62.9%) seemed to have trended slightly downward from the same period last year (64.8%). This is consistent with the 6.5% decline seen in first-quarter 2025 vehicle counts (3.7 million) through the Pleasantville toll plaza on the Atlantic City Expressway (a proxy for city visitation) compared to the same period in 2024 (3.95 million). Air passengers through Atlantic City International Airport were also down by about 22% for the same period year-over-year.

It’s difficult to tell whether the visitation and/or occupancy declines were driven by a more severe winter season than we’ve seen in recent years or other widespread economic factors. Likely multiple factors are contributing to this challenging period in the life of Atlantic City’s casino industry. These dynamics were recently discussed more in depth at LIGHT’s 2025 Jersey Shorecast.

Experts speaking at the event were cautiously optimistic for the summer season, expecting recent increases in meetings bookings and the return of large-scale citywide events to offset some of the industrywide challenges likely to persist through the summer season. The first quarter is rarely a great predictor of the summer season, which continues to rely on a variety of factors outside of local control (among them the ever-present effect of weather!). It has consistently been shown that higher total gross gaming revenue returns are also not a great predictor of the industry’s profitability. Although total GGR trends for April and May have been positive, we will know more with the release of net revenue and GOP data on the second quarter.