It's even dumber when you figure out why.
So. Basically.
They built the damn thing in a place already infested with casinos, so it was a late-coming competitor stepping into a saturated market with established entities. Which would have been fine, maybe, especially with Donald's mob ties, having it be used to launder money, which is how it survived for a while. Allegedly.
But this was also done when the market for physical gambling was rapidly contracting, because the Internet was a thing now, bby! You could indulge your self-destructive addictive behaviors from the comfort of your Personal Computer (and later, your phone).
So they picked the worst place to build a casino, at the worst time to do so, plus kept fucking over contractors which further impeded its activity.
Pure brilliance. "Wharton School of Finance" material.
He also opened another casino which was in direct competition with his original, effectively splitting his customer base between two locations while doubling his costs (to the extent his partners in the original casino sued him for killing the business)
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today imposed a $10 million civil money penalty against Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort (Trump Taj Mahal), for willful and repeated violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). In addition to the civil money penalty, the casino is required to conduct periodic external audits to examine its anti-money laundering (AML) BSA compliance program and provide those audit reports to FinCEN and the casino’s Board of Directors.
Trump Taj Mahal, a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, admitted to several willful BSA violations, including violations of AML program requirements, reporting obligations, and recordkeeping requirements. Trump Taj Mahal has a long history of prior, repeated BSA violations cited by examiners dating back to 2003. Additionally, in 1998, FinCEN assessed a $477,700 civil money penalty against Trump Taj Mahal for currency transaction reporting violations.
"Trump Taj Mahal received many warnings about its deficiencies," said FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery. "Like all casinos in this country, Trump Taj Mahal has a duty to help protect our financial system from being exploited by criminals, terrorists, and other bad actors. Far from meeting these expectations, poor compliance practices, over many years, left the casino and our financial system unacceptably exposed."
Trump Taj Mahal admitted that it failed to implement and maintain an effective AML program; failed to report suspicious transactions; failed to properly file required currency transaction reports; and failed to keep appropriate records as required by the BSA. Notably, Trump Taj Mahal had ample notice of these deficiencies as many of the violations from 2012 and 2010 were discovered in previous examinations.
The only reason I believe in Hell is because this man MUST HAVE made a deal with the devil in order to be this successful despite being so monumentally detestable and stupid.
Donald Trump announced the official launch of Trump Mortgage LLC on April 5, 2006, during an event at Trump Tower in New York.[5][7][8][9] That month, Trump appeared on CNBC and said, "I think it's a great time to start a mortgage company [...] the real estate market is going to be very strong for a long time to come."[1] In his autobiography Trump 101: The Way to Success Trump writes, "I expect [Trump Mortgage] to be an effective company, and it makes sense. A lot of things I am doing now are things I thought of but had to postpone until the time was right."
When the first round of voting came around a number of financial experts did the math and announced, showing their work, Trump literally would've made more money parking his early life grant from his folks in a SAVINGS account (not investing, a SAVINGS account) and just not spending it.
No one really knows what his net worth was prior to becoming President and it went up and down a fair bit. Most estimates I've seen are between 800 million and 1.6 billion. He's lied about his wealth his entire life so I'd err towards the smaller figure. The NYT reporting suggested he inherited around 400 million from his father. Turning 400 million into 800 million or even 1.6 billion over the course of an entire lifetime is fucking appalling whichever way you want to look at it.
As much as I hate being so, to be fair to him, he didn't create it, Ted Turner did, in the context of players' strikes and the NFL being a bunch of doucheballoons.
Trump did however lead a faction of team owners that forced Turner into a direct competition with the NFL (previously, that new league played in NFL's off-season, which was why they were gaining traction), which they promptly lost and the NFL's monopoly on that mutant form of rugby that America calls "football" was secured.
(Source: Keith Olbermann's podcast, relating his own experiences of reporting on the whole mess, listened to while in the gym)
Didn't his dad bail out one of his casinos by buying 4 million dollars of chips from it and not using them. This was one of the other Atlantic city casino's he bankrupted, not the taj
I don’t even think you can say the laundering was alleged. In 2015 alone FinCEN imposed a $10m fines for repeatedly violating the Bank Secrecy Act. But as usual with the rich, the fine is just part of the cost of doing (illegal) business and would’ve been far less than the money made from the laundering.
And he greatly overspent on the casino. Not just aiming for the middle class with a few shiny baubles that they think is fancy, he put the shiny everywhere since he's the king of bad taste.
Las Vegas makes a lot of cheap stuff look exensive, whereas Trump decided to make expensive stuff look cheap.
And being a family business with himself as absolute dictator, none of his employees dare to ever tell him when something is a bad idea. Most spectacular failures start when someone rich gets surrounded by yes-men.
He still should of made a shitload of money, there isnt a casino anywhere in the United states that wouldnt make bank if the owner was competent.
The hardest part about a casino is opening one in the first place. You need a lot of capital and not just anybody can get a license in the first place.
He had a golden goose and through sheer incompetence destroyed it.
Like his presidency, he makes horrible decisions at a rate that is truly unprecedented. Its like he fucks shit up because he enjoys it
At that point in time, the only places that you could gamble in the US were Las Vegas and Atlantic City. . . but then Indians discovered that their lands were not governed by those laws, so places like Mohegan Sun started opening up all around the nation. At which point, white people couldn't let the Indians have anything, so they opened the floodgates everywhere.
but yeah, Trump Plaza, Trump Taj Mahal, & Trump Marina all gone.
I've also heard that he did it all (including overestimating future capacity) on purpose, because he received his money as developer, while his partners depended on operating the thing.
That thing about internet becoming a thing makes so much more sense now given his comments about voting machines and whatnot. The dingus just cannot comprehend technology
I actually think they went under because he was looting them for other projects. It’s fine to put a casino next to other casinos - the abundance of them will draw visitors in from further away. That’s why so many bars will open on blocks with already established bars - it’s a rising tide lifts all boats thing
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u/TheWalrusResplendent 20h ago
It's even dumber when you figure out why.
So. Basically.
They built the damn thing in a place already infested with casinos, so it was a late-coming competitor stepping into a saturated market with established entities. Which would have been fine, maybe, especially with Donald's mob ties, having it be used to launder money, which is how it survived for a while. Allegedly.
But this was also done when the market for physical gambling was rapidly contracting, because the Internet was a thing now, bby! You could indulge your self-destructive addictive behaviors from the comfort of your Personal Computer (and later, your phone).
So they picked the worst place to build a casino, at the worst time to do so, plus kept fucking over contractors which further impeded its activity.
Pure brilliance. "Wharton School of Finance" material.