Green, too, was having good luck in the early going at the slot machines, winning $300 in her first 15 minutes. “It’s not confusing now back then it was very confusing.” “I like the way it’s laid out,” said Joyce Green, of Vineland, who said she used to gamble at Revel once a week. Its previous layout was a major source of patron complaints. Monday was the first time members of the public were on the casino floor since then, which had been reconfigured to make it easier to get around. Ocean Resort is the former Revel, a casino that lasted just over two years before shutting down on Sept. 10, 2016, following a bitter strike in which then-owner Carl Icahn and the city’s main casino workers’ union could not reach agreement on a contract to restore health insurance and pension benefits to unionized workers. Opened by Donald Trump in April 1990, the Taj Mahal closed on Oct. Hard Rock is the former Trump Taj Mahal casino, which was stripped to its foundations and redone.
“Everything is going smoothly, and the staff is really motivated,” he said. But casino President Matt Harkness said things were working as designed. Hard Rock would not permit reporters to watch its soft-play period. As of late Monday afternoon, no serious issues had arisen at either casino, said David Rebuck, director of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.
