Governor Christie to relax some rules on casinos

Gov. Chris Christie is promising Atlantic City’s casinos some more relief from rules and regulations governing the gambling halls.

The announcement comes after Christie met with the heads of MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment, after they asked for a face-to-face to discuss the regulatory environment. 

The city’s seven casinos say they are doing better now following a three-year period where five of their competitors shut down.

Caesars CEO Mark Frissora said the company is seeing improvement in its Atlantic City properties.d

“We feel very good about continuing to invest. It’s been great to have a partner like MGM who is looking at property that we can co-develop together and they’ve come up with some really good plans. We think the future is bright.”

No specifics of what the companies are considering have been disclosed.

Christie said he’s assured them he’ll consider more regulatory relief to encourage additional investment in the city that has seen the exodus of nearly half its casinos.

“We are going to work with them very carefully over the next 30 days or so to try to continue to modernize that regulatory scheme in Atlantic City in order to make it more effective for the state and more efficient for the casinos.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story