Don Johnson Atlantic City
Trump Plaza, on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was demolished on Wednesday, February 17. The building opened in 1984 as former president Donald Trump’s first casi...
Trump Plaza, on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was demolished on Wednesday, February 17. The building opened in 1984 as former president Donald Trump’s first casino. Credit: Mike Lopez via Storyful
Atlantic City Now
Trump Plaza, on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was demolished on Wednesday, February 17. The building opened in 1984 as former president Donald Trump’s first casino. Johnson claims to have won $5.8 million at the Tropicana Casino And Resort in one night, $5 million at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, and $4 million at Caesars Atlantic City, under these favorable conditions and before the casinos got wise and pulled the deal off the table. No stranger to the game.
The Atlantic reports that Don Johnson, a blackjack player, last April, won $15 million from three casinos in Atlantic City, including $6 million in one night from the Tropicana, $5 million from the Borgata and $4 million from Caesars. ATLANTIC CITY - He took Caesars for more than $4 million, burned Borgata for about $5 million and then topped it off by beating Tropicana out of $5.8 million. For Don Johnson, it was an incredible. The Atlantic City mayor, a proponent of the implosion due to the safety issues, nonetheless said Trump Plaza's demise was bittersweet. Barbra Streisand and Don Johnson, Muhammad Ali would be.
The former Trump Plaza hotel and casino is demolished on February 17, 2021 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
An Atlantic City casino that was once the crown jewel of Donald Trump’s empire was demolished on Wednesday in a controlled explosion.
The former Trump Plaza casino was destroyed after falling into such disrepair that chunks of the building began peeling off and crashing to the ground.
The planned blast caused the building to fall in on itself, collapsing to the ground in just seconds.
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The controlled blast sees the former Trump Plaza hotel and casino begin to fall. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
It was reduced to a pile of rubble in seconds. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
The removal of the one-time jewel of former president Donald Trump’s casino empire will clear the way for a prime development opportunity on the middle of the Boardwalk, where the Plaza used to market itself as “Atlantic City’s centrepiece”.
“The way we put Trump Plaza and the city of Atlantic City on the map for the whole world was really incredible,” said Bernie Dillon, events manager for the casino from 1984 to 1991.
“Everyone from Hulk Hogan to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – it was the whole gamut of personalities.
“One night before a Tyson fight I stopped dead in my tracks and looked about four rows in as the place was filling up, and there were two guys leaning in close and having a private conversation: Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.
“It was like that a lot. You had Madonna and Sean Penn walking in, Barbra Streisand and Don Johnson, Muhammad Ali would be there, Oprah sitting with Donald ringside,” he said.
“It was a special time. I’m sorry to see it go.”
Though the former president built the casino, the building is now owned by a different billionaire, Carl Icahn, who acquired the two remaining Trump casinos in 2016 from the last of the company’s many bankruptcies.
The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in its heyday back in 2004. Picture: AFPSource:AFP
A look inside the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino before it was closed in 2014. Picture: Mel Evans/APSource:News Limited
Trump’s former casino fell into disrepair and was demolished – much like his political career. Picture: Twitter @whitehouseSource:Supplied
Demolition crews positioned explosives at strategic points along the building’s support structures, Fire Chief Scott Evans said.
“It will crumble like a deck of cards,” he said.
Mayor Marty Small proposed using the demolition as a fundraiser for the Boys And Girls Club of Atlantic City, and began an auction for the right to press the button that would bring the structure down.
But Mr Icahn – a donor and former special economic adviser to Mr Trump – objected on safety and liability issues, and got the auction house to halt the bids.
Smoke from the demolition floated over the city. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
A man used the demolition for a personal protest against the former president. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
Mr Icahn said he would replace the $175,000 that had already been bid with his own money.
Opened in 1984, when Trump was a real estate developer in his pre-politics days, Trump Plaza was for a time the most successful casino in Atlantic City.
It was the place to be when mega-events such as a Mike Tyson boxing match or a Rolling Stones concert was held next door in Boardwalk Hall.
Ron Gatewood, a food and beverage worker at Trump Plaza from 1986 until its closing in 2014, brought food and drinks to stars including Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross and Barry White in their hotel rooms.
“They were very down to earth people,” Mr Gatewood recalled. “They never made you feel less-than. They tipped very well. Well, some did, anyway.”
The casino even had a cameo in the film Ocean’s Eleven.
When George Clooney and Brad Pitt recruited actor Bernie Mac’s character to help with a Las Vegas casino heist, they plucked him from Trump Plaza, where he was a dealer.
A pile of debris from the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
The statues survived the demolition. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
Bob McDevitt, president of the main casino workers’ union, said the casino was the epitome of glamour when it first opened.
“When there was a Tyson fight, it was like New Year’s Eve all over the city, massive traffic jams,” he said.
But things began to sour for Trump Plaza when Donald Trump opened the nearby Trump Taj Mahal in 1990, with crushing debt that led the company to pour most of its resources – and cash – into the shiny new hotel and casino.
“The moment that the Taj Mahal opened up, it began a decline for the Plaza,” Mr McDevitt said.
“In order to make sure the Taj Mahal was successful, they shipped all the high rollers from Trump Plaza and Trump’s Castle to the Taj, and they really didn’t invest in the Plaza much.”
The Trump Taj Mahal, one of the casinos acquired by Mr Icahn, has since reopened under new ownership as the Hard Rock.
Trump Plaza was the last of four Atlantic City casinos to close in 2014, victims of an oversaturated casino market both in the New Jersey city and in the larger northeast.
There were 12 casinos at the start of 2014 – there now are nine.
By the time it closed, Trump Plaza was the poorest performing casino in Atlantic City, taking in as much money from gamblers in eight-and-a-half months as the market-leading Borgata did every two weeks.
This story was originally published on The Sun and is reproduced here with permission
Not even Don could find the right words to express his astonishment. Beating the house is one thing, but doing it in such an astonishing style is just mind-blowing.
Spectators trooped in their numbers to the high-roller pit of Atlantic City. And inside was a burly middle-aged man, dressed in a red cap and black Oregon State hoodie, whose name was Don Johnson.
At first, word began to spread about the crazy man in the pit who was wagering $100,000 a hand. Word spreads when the betting is that big. Johnson was on an amazing streak. The towers of chips stacked in front of him formed a colorful miniature skyline. His winning run had been picked up by the casino’s watchful overhead cameras and drawn the close scrutiny of the pit bosses. In just one hand, he remembers, he won $800,000. In a three-hand sequence, he took $1.2 million.
The basics of blackjack are simple. Almost everyone knows them. You play against the house. Two cards are placed face-up before the player, and two more cards, one down, one up, before the dealer. A card’s suit doesn’t matter, only its numerical value—each face card is worth 10, and an ace can be either a one or an 11. The goal is to get to 21, or as close to it as possible without going over. Scanning the cards on the table before him, the player can either stand or keep taking cards in an effort to approach 21. Since the house’s hand has one card face-down, the player can’t know exactly what the hand is, which is what makes this a game.
As Johnson remembers it, the $800,000 hand started with him betting $100,000 and being dealt two eights. If a player is dealt two of a kind, he can choose to “split” the hand, which means he can play each of the cards as a separate hand and ask for two more cards, in effect doubling his bet. That’s what Johnson did. His next two cards, surprisingly, were also both eights, so he split each again. Getting four cards of the same number in a row doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Johnson says he was once dealt six consecutive aces at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. He was now playing four hands, each consisting of a single eight-card, with $400,000 in the balance.
He was neither nervous nor excited. Johnson plays a long game, so the ups and downs of individual hands, even big swings like this one, don’t matter that much to him. He is a veteran player. Little interferes with his concentration. He doesn’t get rattled. With him, it’s all about the math, and he knows it cold. Whenever the racily clad cocktail waitress wandered in with a fresh whiskey and Diet Coke, he took it from the tray.
The house’s hand showed an upturned five. Arrayed on the table before him were the four eights. He was allowed to double down—to double his bet—on any hand, so when he was dealt a three on the first of his hands, he doubled his bet on that one, to $200,000. When his second hand was dealt a two, he doubled down on that, too. When he was dealt a three and a two on the next two hands, he says, he doubled down on those, for a total wager of $800,000.
It was the dealer’s turn. He drew a 10, so the two cards he was showing totaled 15. Johnson called the game—in essence, betting that the dealer’s down card was a seven or higher, which would push his hand over 21. This was a good bet: since all face cards are worth 10, the deck holds more high cards than low. When the dealer turned over the house’s down card, it was a 10, busting him. Johnson won all four hands.
Johnson didn’t celebrate. He didn’t even pause. As another skyscraper of chips was pushed into his skyline, he signaled for the next hand. He was just getting started.
Don Johnson Atlantic City
The headline in The Press of Atlantic City was enough to gladden the heart of anyone who has ever made a wager or rooted for the underdog:
“BLACKJACK PLAYER TAKES TROPICANA
FOR NEARLY $6 MILLION,
SINGLE-HANDEDLY RUINS CASINO’S MONTH”
But the story was even bigger than that. Johnson’s assault on the Tropicana was merely the latest in a series of blitzes he’d made on Atlantic City’s gambling establishments. In the four previous months, he’d taken $5 million from the Borgata casino and another $4 million from Caesars. Caesars had cut him off, he says, and then effectively banned him from its casinos worldwide.
Fifteen million dollars in winnings from three different casinos? Nobody gets that lucky. How did he do it? Most people quipped.
And just like them, I know by now you’re most likely thinking about how you can also wager and win big like Don. It’s a nice dream to have!
Don Johnson Atlantic City
But you know what? You don’t even need to travel to Atlantic City or some of the biggest land-based casinos in the world to realize this dream. Thanks to the evolution of digital technology, you can now do it right from the comfort of your home on the omiqq website. And if you’re lucky enough to have the right set of strategies like Don Johnson, you just might be the next biggest success story of the poker world.
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Don Johnson Atlantic City 15 Million
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