Atlantic City’s nine casinos and their online operations generated nearly $720m in net revenue for Q1, driving profitability past both last year’s and comparable pre-pandemic levels.

According to figures published by New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE), the first quarter of 2022 saw revenue rise by over 25% when compared to Q1 of last year.

But more importantly, net revenue exceeded the $704.6m generated during the first quarter of 2019.

This revenue rise spurred on a similar increase in gross operating profit. For the three months ended 31 March, this amounted to $155.6m, up by 63% from 2021 and by almost 80% from 2019.

However, not all of Atlantic City’s nine casinos shared in this growth. Only four licensees saw their Q1 profits exceed pre-pandemic levels: Borgata, Hard Rock, Ocean Resort and Tropicana.

These four licensees also reported the highest gross profit figures for the quarter, generating $46m, $27m, $18.5m and $19.8m respectively.

Only one operator posted a loss for Q1 2022, Bally’s AC, which actually saw this widen on a year-over-year basis, increasing to $6.8m from $6.5m.

The average hotel occupancy rate for the quarter was roughly 63%, over 10 percentage points higher than the comparable period last year, though below the 72.6% recorded for Q1 of 2019.

Ocean reported the highest occupancy rate for the quarter, at over 80%, while Golden Nugget recorded the lowest, at 41.6%.

Overall, Q1’s results reflect a predominantly positive trend; however, potential labour disputes threaten to upset Atlantic City’s ongoing recovery from the impact of Covid-19.