Presidential Candidate Donald Trump and Gambling: What is His Record?
A dismal failure on all fronts, Gambling911.com can reveal
Four years ago, Gambling 911 profiled the candidates running for President of the United States in regard to their views on gambling issues.
How did the candidates stand on the Federal issue of legalizing Internet gambling? If a candidate was a governor, did the number of casinos in his state increase or decrease during his tenure? If a candidate was a senator or a congressman, how did he vote when the various bills concerning online gambling came up? And what, if any, connections did the candidates have to gambling? And did any gamble recreationally?
Gambling 911 answered those questions and then some, and now it's time to do it again, as the 2016 campaign for the presidency heats up.
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Starting today, and then appearing on a regular basis, Gambling 911 will present a series of articles profiling the 2016 candidates for U.S. President in regard to their views on issues concerning gambling.
First up will be multi-billionaire real estate developer Donald J. Trump, who is currently leading in most national telephone opinion polls as the voters' choice for the Republican nominee for President.
Trump, 69, is the candidate in this campaign who is most closely identified with gambling.
In fact, he's more identified with gambling than anyone who has ever run for President.
Sure, Richard Nixon famously raised funds for his first Congressional race by playing poker, and President Harry S Truman had a hand-carved poker table at his Little White House in Key West, Florida, where he played with Cabinet secretaries, U.S. senators and Army generals.
And Thomas Jefferson, an inventor and architect in addition to being President, designed and built a card table at the White House that could quickly be converted into a desk, in case he was visited by someone who didn't approve of gambling.
But none of those people, and no one who has ever run for President before, has owned casinos.
Trump, of course, owned three casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but after a promising start in the business, he started to sputter and then failed miserably as a casino mogul.
Although Trump himself has never declared personal bankruptcy, his company that operated the casinos, Trump Entertainment Resorts, did file for bankruptcy several times, and he eventually he got out of the casino business, although he still leases his name to an Atlantic City casino, the Trump Taj Mahal, through his company.
But that's just the land-based casino business.
Online casinos are another matter.
Trump has been involved in that too and that too ended in disaster.
So let's look at Trump's history with online gambling, because as President, he would have tremendous power in determining whether online gambling is ever legalized on a national basis.
According to the October 20, 2011 issue of FORBES magazine, Trump Entertainment Resorts disclosed in an official securities filing that it was forming a joint venture for Internet gambling with Trump, his daughter Ivanka and the Avenue Capital Group, a $12 billion hedge fund controlled by billionaire Marc Lasry.
"We have the hottest brand in the world according to many and we think we will do extremely well because of the Trump brand," Trump told the magazine about his foray into online gambling.
On whether he foresaw the U.S. government eventually legalizing online gambling nationally, Trump told FORBES: "This has to happen because many other countries are doing it and like usual the U.S. is just missing out. It seems inevitable, but with this country you never know if it's inevitable."
National legalization of Internet gambling still hasn't occurred, but several states, including New Jersey, have legalized it.
And as soon as they did, Trump jumped in.
According to the July 1, 2013 edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper, Vegas-based online gambling operator Ultimate Gaming and Trump Entertainment Resorts signed a partnership agreement to bring Internet gambling to New Jersey
Under the deal, Ultimate Gaming would provide the technology and manage the websites that would offer poker and other casino games, and the websites would operate under the Ultimate Gaming brand but have marketing agreements with the Trump Taj Mahal, the newspaper reported.
The arrangement didn't last long.
On September 14, 2014, Ultimate Gaming announced on its website that it was terminating the agreement with the Trump company, effective in one week.
Ultimate Gaming also accused its former partner, the Trump Taj Mahal, of breach of contract.
“We are owed about $1.5 million from Trump Entertainment,” Marc Falcone, senior vice-president of Ultimate Gaming, said. “We in effect haven’t been paid for more than two months. Money that the site generated and that we are owed, we were never given."
So, as with his land-based casinos, Trump's attempt at an online casino was also disastrous.
Presidential candidate Trump likes to brag about his many successes, including in real estate, television and writing books.
But he also has many failures which he doesn't mention, such as his Internet college, Trump Online University, which was investigated by the New York attorney general for fraud, his print magazine, Trump World, which folded, and his airline, the Trump Shuttle, which also went out of business.
Also listed among his failures has to be his record on operating casinos, both offline and online.
That has to leave a bitter taste for Trump, and should he become the next President of the United States, it could help shape his views on gambling issues.
By Tom Somach
Gambling 911 Staff Writer
