The U.S. commercial gaming industry reached a record high in 2025, generating $78.72 billion in gross gaming revenue (GGR), a 9.2% increase over the previous year, according to the American Gaming Association’s (AGA) Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker.
Despite those increases, a number of casino operators have closed locations or even filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. That’s at least partly because increased competition has made the operating environment more challenging.
In the early 1980s, for example, my parents took free charter flights to Atlantic City from Boston, where they got a comped room, maybe a buffet voucher, and a little freeplay. Then, in 1986, Foxwoods opened in Connecticut, and you could gamble without a plane flight.
Now, the Boston area has multiple casinos, so it makes less sense to bother with going to Atlantic City.
As gamblers, we now have choices. I can drive down the road toward Miami and be in one of a handful of casinos in under an hour. That means the casino operators don’t have the same built-in clientele they did when only Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and Reno had legal gambling.
Competition isn’t necessarily what brought down casino operator Imperial Pacific International (IPI), but its bankruptcy illustrates the risks when a property can’t attract enough customers to support its costs…
More casinos does not mean more revenue
While IPI was not operating in a traditional market for a casino, its success required attracting people to its property. That’s becoming harder as more casinos have been built around the country.
“A Study of the Systematic Risks of New Jersey’s Casinos,” a paper from Rutgers University by Will Irving, Michael L. Lahr, and Chen Zhang, showed the impact of adding casinos in Atlantic City as well as in surrounding markets.
“The addition of new casinos in Atlantic City will yield diminishing returns to gross gaming revenues within the city, particularly as new competitors come online in neighboring states. Gross gaming revenue of new casinos in Atlantic City would come largely at the expense of existing venues,” the authors wrote.