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Atlantic City heads into the weekend with good odds of missing its $1.8M bond payment due Sunday, which would make the gambling destination the first New Jersey city to default since the Great Depression.
The Jersey Shore town has seen years of financial woes as one-third of its casinos shut down—and, according to the mayor, bankruptcy could be on the horizon.
“We’re down to a couple million dollars on any given day,” Mayor Don Guardian tells the Wall Street Journal.
Standard & Poor’s lowered the municipality’s credit rating in January, saying that it appeared inevitable the city would default on debt payments.
The downturn started for the vacation destination when neighboring states opened the floodgates to gambling, taking away Atlantic City’s special draw—after which the city’s credit sunk to eight notches below Chicago’s junk rating.
That gave Atlantic City the distinction of having the worst credit rating of any American city—and things aren’t looking up. [WSJ]
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