Hoffberg realized that when the Taj Mahal Casino Resort opened to the public in the summer of 1988, the crowds would thin out with the approach of winter. Trump could not sustain the payments on the high-interest debt because of the risks involved. Mark Hoffberg, a Wall Street Journal financial analyst, realized that Trump had taken on too much debt on acquiring his casino properties. A significant amount of debt was garnered from financing the Taj Mahal, one of Trump’s casinos acquired in 1988. He had tried to dominate the casino biz by owning three casinos. Trump crusaded unsuccessfully against competitors opening elsewhere in the New York metropolitan area.Īs a consequence, Trump’s business empire began to unravel. Unfortunately, other states began legalizing gambling on their home turfs which began to slice into the gambling crowds in Atlantic City. At one point there were fifteen casinos in Atlantic City of which Donald Trump was the greatest presence with ownership of three casinos. When gambling was legalized in Atlantic City in 1978, Las Vegas was the only other place where gambling casinos were legal and they 2,000 miles away from the East Coast.
Trump in the mid-1980s had unwisely gotten in on the top of the casino wave in Atlantic City.
