Atlantic City Casino History
By John Mehaffey
New Jersey voters amended the State Constitution in 1976 to allow casino style gambling. It became the second state after Nevada to legalize casinos. They were restricted to Atlantic City. No other parts of the state could build casinos.
On May 28, 1978, Resorts International opened as the first casino in Atlantic City. There are currently 12 hotel casinos located in the resort city. Borgata is by far the biggest winner in terms of casino revenue. It was built in 2003. Only one casino has been built since Borgata. Revel opened in March 2012. It fell into bankruptcy within a year after it failed to attract gamblers with its attempt to be a resort first and casino second.
New Jersey has fallen on hard times as neighboring state have legalized casinos. Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun began drawing gamblers from New York City in 1992. Today, casinos are now found in all states that border New Jersey. This has forced New Jersey out of the second place spot in terms of gaming revenue. Pennsylvania now has that honor.
New Jersey legalized sports betting in January 2012 after voters passed a nonbinding referendum instructing the New Jersey Legislature to pass it. The major sports leagues took issue with this. New Jersey was not exempted under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). Even Delaware, which was exempted under PASPA, lost its own fight with the sports leagues in 2009 and was forced to only offer parlay cards.
The fight between New Jersey and the sports leagues is still being heard by the courts. In the meantime, New Jersey legalized fantasy sports betting in April 2013. This action was not challenged by the sports leagues. Fantasy sports betting has is not live in any Atlantic City casino.
Governor Christie signed online gambling into law on February 26, 2026. This legalized online poker and casino games in the State. Any player located within New Jersey at the time of login will be able to play interactive real money games.
Governor Christie had twice vetoed legislation before finally signing it into law. In March 2011, Governor Christie outright vetoed similar legislation after citing that he felt it would take a change to the New Jersey Constitution to allow gambling outside of Atlantic City, regardless of where the actual servers were located.
On February 7, 2026, Governor Christie apparently changed his mind. While he still vetoed the bill in front of him, it was only a conditional one. He instructed the legislature to raise the tax rate from 10% to 15% and add more funds to the problem gambling services provided under the law.
New Jersey online casinos will open to the public on September 26, 2026. There will be a 5-day soft launch to identify any bugs in the software, payment processing or location verification services. Online poker and casino games will be available to players that are located within New Jersey at the time of play. Any game legal in Atlantic City casinos will be allowed over the Internet.
Visiting Atlantic City? View our top 10 dining experiences in Atlantic City.