Finance

Atlantic City’s Failed $2.6 Billion Casino Rolls the Dice

Can a new owner bring customers back to the twice-bankrupt Revel?

The former Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J., on June 19, 2017.
Photographer: Seth Wenig/AP Photo

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By Simone Foxman and Christopher Palmeri

June 22, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the June 25, 2018 issue of businessweek.

The Revel hotel and casino was sitting empty last year on Atlantic City’s boardwalk, a bleak symbol of real estate failure rather than the glittering resort it was built to be. Bruce Deifik decided to take control of it sight unseen.

Deifik, a property investor based in Denver who’d never been to Atlantic City, got a call in May 2017 from a friend seeking $5 million to help two developers revive the casino. Four days later, he agreed to double that amount and take over their effort. By January he was the majority owner, part of a group with $200 million on the line.