Last year, four casinos in the Atlantic City area closed their doors for good and those that remained hoped to see a turn to profits when it comes to gambling revenues. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement recently released the new figures for revenue earnings and the eight remaining casinos have seen a 26% increase in gross profits during the first quarter of operations for 2015.

The remaining casinos were able to earn $81.3 million which is a nice increase from the $64.5 million of last year during the same time frame. It seems as though the weaker casinos being eliminated from the gaming city allowed the remaining facilities to perform better. Some of this was by design as at least one profitable casino was closed, and another was cannibalized rather than re-opened by new owners – with Caesars having a hand in both decisions.

New Jersey Casino Control Commission Chairman Matt Levinson stated that gaming revenues are up as well as top revenues and net revenues. Gross operating profits have increased with a nice rise in hotel occupancy rates. The Golden Nugget was able to score the highest increase in revenues moving from an operating loss of close to $1.8 million in 2014’s first quarter to over $4 million for the same time frame in 2015.

Caesars is facing bankruptcy but managed to earn almost $15 million in revenues. Bally’s took in $4.5 million while the Borgata earned $38.4 million. Harrah’s increased their profits from 2014 by over 30% with $27.6 million while the Tropicana saw a huge downswing from $32 million last year to just over $2 million for this year.

The Resorts Casino also had an operating loss of $1.4 million but saw an improvement from last year’s totals. The Trump Taj Mahal lost over $8.7 million and was recently acquired by Carl Ichan of the Tropicana.