Casino Shut-Down?

With state budget negotiators engaged in a high-stakes showdown in Trenton, Atlantic City casinos scrambled Monday to avoid the unthinkable: an unprecedented shutdown whose impact would reach Wall Street, Main Street and Las Vegas.

The city's 11 casinos, which employ about 48,000 people and generate $4.3 billion a year from gamblers, were making plans Monday to close their doors at midnight.

The casinos, which employ hundreds of inspectors and other officials who oversee the counting of money and the security of patrons, are open 24 hours a day and never close. But Gov. James E. McGreevey's threat to order the shutdown of state services was about as welcome as a black cat in a baccarat pit.

The state Casino Control Commission and the state Division of Gaming Enforcement, the two agencies that regulate New Jersey casinos, are not funded by the state per se.

Casino taxes and fees finance the salaries and operations of the two agencies, but the money flows through the state budget. McGreevey's office has said casino regulators were not essential employees, and would not work if there were a shutdown.

The casinos felt otherwise. They filed an emergency application Monday with Superior Court Judge George Seltzer, asking him to compel the agencies to keep their workers on duty so that the casinos could stay open.

The casino control commission was considering the possibility of a late-night meeting to suspend the operations certificates of the casinos, which would temporarily close them out of the casino business, costing millions of dollars.

The timing was especially inauspicious. The casinos typically enjoy their most lucrative weekends on three-day holidays, and the upcoming July 4th weekend is no exception. In addition, the first new casino hotel to open in more than a decade was scheduled to open Thursday.

The Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, a $1 billion joint venture of Boyd Gaming Corp. and MGM Mirage, was among the casinos nervously awaiting word from Trenton or the court.

"Are they going to affect the biggest holiday weekend this business has and the opening of the first Atlantic City casino in 13 years?" said Maureen Simans, a spokeswoman for the Casino Association of New Jersey. "It's absolutely shocking it's gotten to this point."

Lawmakers were still negotiating the final details of the $24.1 billion state budget Monday afternoon as the constitutional deadline for approving the spending plan loomed. By law, the governor must sign the budget by midnight June 30 or state government shuts down.

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Author: NBC 10/AP