May 26, 1978: Resorts International opens, the 1st hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey with a legal gambling casino.
On November 2, 1976, the day that Jimmy Carter was elected President, New Jersey voters approved casino gambling in Atlantic City, making New Jersey the 2nd State, after Nevada, to legalize it.
This would one day have repercussions in another Presidential race, as Donald Trump ran in 2016 despite building 3 casino-hotels in A.C. and buying a 4th, and having them all go bankrupt. Some businessman he turned out to be.
Resorts was followed in 1979 by Caesars and Bally's; in 1980 by the Brighton, Harrah's and the original Golden Nugget; in 1981 by the Tropicana, the Playboy and the Claridge (in a hotel established in 1930); in 1984 by Trump Plaza; in 1985 by Trump's Castle; in 1987 by the Showboat; in 1990 by the Trump Taj Mahal; in 2003 by the Borgata; and in 2012 by the Revel.
Perhaps I was a bit too harsh on Trump: In Atlantic City, the casino-hotel business has proven not to be very stable, especially since other States have since legalized gambling as well:
* The original Golden Nugget became Bally's Grand in 1987, the Hilton in 1996, and the Atlantic Club in 2011, and, as of May 26, 2022, has sat vacant since 2014.
* The Playboy became the Atlantis in 1984, Trump Regency in 1989, Trump World's Fair in 1996, and closed in 1999.
* Trump's Castle became Trump Marina in 1997, and the new Golden Nugget in 2011
* The Brighton became the Sands shortly after opening, closed in 2006, was demolished the next year, and is still an empty lot.
* Trump Plaza closed in 2014, and sat vacant until being demolished in 2021.
* The Revel became The Ocean in 2014, and the Revel again in 2018.
* The Claridge still operates as a hotel, but without a casino since 2014.
* The Showboat closed in 2014, and reopened as a hotel without a casino in 2016.
* And the Trump Taj Mahal closed on October 10, 2016, just 29 days before his "election" as President, replaced with the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in 2018. It's a bit ironic that the last remaining Trump casino had a Middle Eastern theme. But then, Dumb Donald is so dumb (How dumb is he?), he didn't know that the actual Taj Mahal isn't in the Middle East, it's in India.
Atlantic City had long been controlled by organized crime, including by the families of nearby New York (128 miles to the north) and Philadelphia (61 miles to the northwest). This reputation was hammered home by the 1980 film Atlantic City, Bruce Springsteen's 1982 song "Atlantic City," and the 1990 film The Godfather Part III. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission, a 3-person group appointed by the Governor, keeps a tight lid on such things, so, as with Las Vegas, Mob control is severely diminished from what it once was.
The growth of Atlantic City as a casino resort city, combined with the growth of the cruise ship industry and the reduction of its prices, led to the decline of the resort hotels in the Catskill Mountains of New York and the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, despite their being closer to New York City than Atlantic City is. (Both the Catskills and the Poconos had their resorts, on the average, 90 to 100 miles from Midtown Manhattan.)
The legendary Catskill hotels, mostly catering to Jewish families that, at their arrival in America, hadn't been welcome elsewhere, fell by the wayside in the 1990s and the 2000s: Grossinger's, Kutsher's, the Nevele ("eleven" spelled backwards)... they're all gone. A few derelict buildings are left, with the promise of new developers turning them into new resorts, but it hasn't happened.
The Poconos have fared a bit better, maybe because the people running them have been smarter. The people running what a TV commercial jingle called "beautiful Mount Airy Lodge" saw the writing on the wall, and converted their facility into Mount Airy Casino Resort. The Sands went the other way: When their Atlantic City casino went bankrupt, they opened a casino-hotel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, not far from the Poconos. Except that went bust, too, and is now Wind Creek Bethlehem.
UPDATE: As of November 2025, the only notable change to the above information is that the owners of the land where the Sands stood are planning an extension of the Claridge.
*
May 26, 1978 was a Friday, the start of a Memorial Day Weekend. Football was out of season. The day before, the Montreal Canadiens had beaten the Boston Bruins in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, to win their 3rd straight Cup.
The NBA Finals were between Games 2 and 3, and the Washington Bullets would beat the Seattle SuperSonics in 7 games, with the Sonics reversing that result the next year, beating the Bullets in 5. (The Bullets renamed themselves the Washington Wizards in 1997, while the Sonics moved to become the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008.)
And these Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-3 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees trailed 2-0 in the bottom of the 7th, but Jim Spencer hit a grand slam, making a winning pitcher of Sparky Lyle in relief of Jim Beattie. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4.
* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 5-4 at the Astrodome in Houston.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Dwight Evans hit 2 home runs, Jim Rice 1, and Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4 with a walk.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4.
* The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3 with a walk.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Expos, 2-1 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. All the runs came in the 7th inning: Larry Parrish hit a solo home run for the 'Spos, but Manny Sanguillén hit a 2-run homer for the Bucs. Willie Stargell did not play.
* The Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Dave Roberts pitched a 7-hit shutout, oddly without either striking out or walking a batter. Bobby Murcer went 2-for-4 with an RBI for the Cubs. Lou Brock did not play for the Cards.
* The Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers, 6-4 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Diego Padres, 3-1 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Pete Rose went 2-for-3 with a walk. Johnny Bench hit a home run. Dave Winfield went 0-for-4.
* The California Angels beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-5 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Robin Yount went 1-for-4, and Paul Molitor went 0-for-5.
* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
* And the Kansas City Royals and the Minnesota Twins were rained out at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on August 16. The Twins won the opener, 5-1. The Royals won the nightcap, 11-7. Over the 2 games, Rod Carew went 5-for-9 with a walk and 3 RBIs, while George Brett went 2-for-6 with a home run, 4 walks and 3 RBIs.
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