Trump assembled his casino empire by borrowing money at such high interest rates - after telling regulators he would not - that the businesses had almost no chance to succeed. He repeatedly emphasized that what really mattered about his time in Atlantic City was that he had made a lot of money there. He did not recall details about some issues, but did not question the Times' findings. In three interviews with the Times since late April, Trump acknowledged in general terms that high debt and lagging revenues had plagued his casinos. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen.

He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. Though he now says his casinos were overtaken by the same tidal wave that eventually slammed this seaside city's gambling industry, in reality he was failing in Atlantic City long before Atlantic City itself was failing.īut even as his companies did poorly, Trump did well. But a close examination by th e New York Times of regulatory reviews, court records and security filings leaves little doubt that Trump's casino business was a protracted failure.

His audacious personality and opulent properties brought attention - and countless players - to Atlantic City as it sought to overtake Las Vegas as the country's gambling capital. 'The money I took out of there was incredible.' 'Atlantic City fueled a lot of growth for me,' Trump said in an interview in May, summing up his 25-year history here. A central argument of his candidacy is that he would bring the same business prowess to the Oval Office, doing for America what he did for his companies. On the presidential campaign trail, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, often boasts of his success in Atlantic City, of how he outwitted the Wall Street firms that financed his casinos and rode the value of his name to riches.

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