Ocean got off to a slow start and ran out of money under the ownership of Colorado developer Bruce Deifik, who bought the casino sight unseen. And for awhile, it looked as though history was repeating itself.

Perhaps no casino was less expected to succeed than Ocean, the successor to the ill-fated Revel, which shut down in 2014 without ever having come close to turning a profit.

In terms of total net revenue, Bokunewicz said Hard Rock and Ocean’s respective 17.5% and 13.4% market shares seem to have come primarily at the expense of the Borgata, which lost 9.2 percentage points in the last five years, down to 22.3%. Hard Rock and Ocean both hired executives from Borgata, and went after the luxury segment of the market, which Borgata has long dominated. Jane Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute at Stockton University, which studies the Atlantic City gambling market, said Hard Rock and Ocean have helped grow the overall market, even as individual properties lost share to them. But those revenue streams must be shared with other parties like sports books and tech platforms, and are not solely for the casinos to keep. When internet and sports betting money is included, Golden Nugget ranked second, due to a strong online operation. Hard Rock was second at $492 million, and Ocean was third at $356 million. Last year, in terms of money won from in-person gamblers, the Borgata won over $724 million. What happened is that the two newest casinos have become among the most successful in town. “If you were in some other place, there was some nervousness as to what might happen.” “If you were a Hard Rock or Ocean employee, it was an exciting, opportunistic time,” said Mike Sampson, Hard Rock's general manager, who has worked there since the day it opened.

On June 27, 2018, the former Trump Taj Mahal reopened as Hard Rock, and the former Revel reopened as Ocean. Hard Rock and Ocean still have not dethroned the Borgata as Atlantic City's top casino, but they have taken some of its market share. And while they have taken market share from their seven competitors, no one has gone out of business and the market as a whole seems to be adjusting to the new reality, in which there are three dominant casinos - and everyone else.

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