ATLANTIC CITY — Atlantic City's casinos are generating billions of dollars in gambling revenue, but longtime gaming-industry observer Roger Gros says increasing pressure on casino profits is producing a much different reality behind the scenes.
Casinos are cutting staffing, Gros says, and increasingly asking the employees who remain to shoulder more of the workload.
“They are, like you say, cutting to the bone now,” Gros, editor-at-large of Global Gaming Business magazine, said Tuesday on Off The Press with Scott Cronick on WOND.
Gros said Atlantic City isn't alone. Las Vegas casinos are facing many of the same pressures.
“Vegas is also doing what Atlantic City is doing,” Gros said. “They're cutting their employee base to the core.”
The result, he said, is greater pressure on the workers who remain.
“A lot is depending upon the people who are remaining,” Gros said, “and they're doing the jobs of maybe two or three other employees who are not there anymore.”
His comments take on additional significance following a new Atlantic County Economic Alliance analysis warning that Atlantic City's physical casino-hotel economy is already at a nine-year employment low and could face thousands of additional jobs being placed at risk over the next decade.
Casino profits are getting squeezed
Gros' warning comes as Atlantic City's casinos confront an increasingly uncomfortable financial equation.
The nine casino hotels generated $836.5 million in net revenue during the second quarter, a 1.3% increase from a year earlier.
But gross operating profit fell 9.3% to $164.5 million.
For the first six months of 2026, industry operating profit fell an even steeper 14.9% to $265.3 million. Seven of the nine casinos reported lower second-quarter profits than a year earlier.
Gros said he doesn't believe those declining profit figures can simply be dismissed as an accounting quirk.
“They've got to report these numbers to the state,” Gros said. “I think this is pretty much the reality.”
He pointed primarily to rising operating costs.
“The cost of goods has increased dramatically,” Gros said.
Labor costs are another factor.
“Certainly, labor is a big part of it,” Gros said.
James Plousis, chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, similarly said the casinos encountered their highest second-quarter costs and expenses in nine years, significantly constraining their operating profits.
The financial pressure helps explain why rising gambling revenue doesn't necessarily translate into expanding casino payrolls.
Employment already at nine-year low
The Atlantic County Economic Alliance put numbers behind that trend in its newly released Greater Atlantic City Casino-Hotel Employment Exposure Assessment.
Atlantic City's casino hotels directly employed 21,172 full- and part-time workers in April 2026, according to the report — the lowest April employment level in the nine years examined.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the same nine casino properties employed nearly 30,000 people.
The decline is particularly significant because casino employment remains overwhelmingly a South Jersey economic issue.
The ACEA report found 69.5% of Atlantic City casino-hotel employees — 14,723 workers — live in just five Atlantic County communities: Atlantic City, Pleasantville, Egg Harbor Township, Galloway Township and Hamilton Township.
That means staffing reductions on the casino floor aren't merely a corporate cost-cutting measure. They translate directly into fewer jobs and paychecks in surrounding communities.
The casino industry remains one of South Jersey's largest employers. A 2024 industry impact report said approximately 23,000 people worked for Atlantic City's casinos that year, including about 19,000 Atlantic County residents.
Thousands more jobs could be exposed
ACEA's new study isn't predicting that thousands of casino employees will suddenly be laid off.
Its author, ACEA Director of Business Development Max Slusher, specifically describes it as a planning exercise rather than a forecast.
“This is a planning document, not a doomsday prophecy,” Slusher said.
But the modeling shows how much employment could be exposed as multiple pressures converge.
Even under ACEA's baseline scenario — which assumes continued online-gaming growth and competition from three new New York City casinos but no new North Jersey casinos — the analysis identifies 5,105 Atlantic County jobs as potentially exposed by 2035.
Under its most severe scenario, which also assumes casinos eventually open at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park, the number rises to 8,005 jobs, along with approximately $1.8 billion in regional economic output.
“History has taught us that Atlantic City is resilient and can absorb one shock at a time,” Slusher said. “But the region cannot absorb five monumental challenges stacking on top of each other unless we develop a plan.”
Online gaming changes the employment equation
Another issue is where Atlantic City's gambling business is migrating.
Internet casino gaming has grown enormously in New Jersey, but online gambling doesn't require the army of dealers, bartenders, servers, housekeepers, hotel employees, security personnel and other workers necessary to operate a physical casino resort.
ACEA's modeling found that moving $1 million in gaming spending from a physical casino to online gaming supports 30.6% fewer direct and supplier jobs in Atlantic County.
That creates an unusual situation in which New Jersey can continue reporting enormous — even record — statewide gambling totals without generating a comparable increase in Atlantic City employment.
For workers, that distinction matters considerably more than the headline revenue number.
Could smaller casinos simply get smaller?
Gros raised another possibility that could have significant implications for Atlantic City's workforce.
Cronick asked whether lower-performing properties such as Bally's and Resorts could eventually reduce the scale of their physical casino operations while placing greater emphasis on their online businesses.
“I would think so, yeah,” Gros said.
“I would think they would emphasize more their online products than their land-based products,” he added.
That doesn't necessarily mean those casinos would close.
But it suggests another possible future for Atlantic City's smaller operators: a physical casino that remains open with fewer employees while a larger share of the company's gaming business occurs online.
For Atlantic County, that distinction is crucial.
An online bet can still generate gaming revenue and state tax revenue. But it doesn't require the same local workforce as a visitor spending a weekend inside an Atlantic City casino hotel.
‘Doing the jobs of maybe two or three’
Gros said the industry's immediate response to higher expenses isn't difficult to see.
Casinos can increase prices and look for efficiencies, but payroll is one of the largest expenses they control.
And he said operators have already pushed those reductions far enough that remaining employees are feeling the effects.
“They're cutting their employee base to the core,” Gros said.
His observation provides a present-day counterpart to ACEA's longer-term warning.
The economic alliance is modeling what could happen to thousands of South Jersey jobs if online gambling, New York competition, possible North Jersey casinos, higher costs and an economic downturn converge.
Gros says the pressure is already visible inside the properties.
The people who remain, he said, are increasingly “doing the jobs of maybe two or three other employees who are not there anymore.”
For Atlantic City, that may be the more consequential number to watch as casino revenues continue climbing: not simply how much gamblers spend, but how many South Jersey workers are still needed to generate it.
About the Author
Scott Stephens
Scott has been an on-air personality, producer and newscaster for 30+ years. He has been a mainstay in the South Jersey Community and on the air across many different area stations. Scott can currently be heard on Kool 98.3 and News Talk 1400 & 92.3 WOND.
