Qualla: Ocean Casino Resort

Ocean Casino Resort: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bruce Emmerling, CC BY-SA 4.0. It cost $2.4 billion to build and was open just twenty-eight months before it closed for good. Then it sat dark for nearly four years - power cut, sewer service threatened with cancellation, the famous LED pearl on its rooftop unlit, a single chief engineer keeping the systems alive until he too resigned. Today the building is open again under its third name. At 710 feet, the Ocean Casino Resort tower is the tallest structure in Atlantic City and the second-tallest casino tower in the United States. It is also one of the most expensive failures in the history of American gambling - and one of the most stubborn comebacks. The story explains, more than any other Boardwalk property, why Atlantic City in the 2010s very nearly lost itself.

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Image: Bruce Emmerling | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ocean Casino Resort: Built on a Bet

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tallguy0187, CC BY 3.0. The Revel Casino Hotel was conceived in 2007, in the last year before the financial crisis, as Atlantic City's answer to Vegas. The Miami firm Arquitectonica designed the curving glass tower; BLT Architects served as architect of record; Tishman Realty - fresh off building the Bo...

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Image: Tallguy0187 | CC BY 3.0

Ocean Casino Resort: The Quick Collapse

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Constantino14, CC BY-SA 4.0. Revel was beautiful, smoke-free, and almost immediately failing. The casino floor sat six stories above the beach, which gamblers disliked because they had to take elevators to get to the slots. A two-acre rooftop deck called Sky Garden featured 30,000 live trees and plants - an ...

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Image: Constantino14 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ocean Casino Resort: Glenn Straub's Strange Years

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Constantino14, CC BY-SA 4.0. Revel closed on September 2, 2014 - the third of four Atlantic City casinos to shut that year. What followed was one of the more peculiar real estate episodes in American gambling history. In April 2015, Florida polo magnate Glenn Straub bought the building for $82 million, a sma...

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Image: Constantino14 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ocean Casino Resort: Ocean Resort Casino

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0. In January 2018, Straub sold the building for $200 million to AC Ocean Walk, controlled by Denver developer Bruce Deifik. The new owners rebranded the property Ocean Resort Casino, partnered with William Hill for sports betting, joined Hyatt's Unbound Collection of unaffiliated h...

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Image: Farragutful | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ocean Casino Resort: The Pearl Still Glows

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lisa Andres, CC BY 2.0. From a small plane over the New Jersey coast at night, the Ocean tower is the brightest object south of New York City. The white sphere on its roof - the Pearl - contains LEDs that can be programmed in any color or pattern, and it glows over the dark Atlantic like a lighthouse fo...

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Image: Lisa Andres | CC BY 2.0