The New Jersey Casino Control Commission is delaying a decision on where to place $875,000 that is left over in a closed fund that was used to allow players to cash in chips from the former Playboy Hotel and Casino.
Last month, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement closed the account dedicated to the cashing in of unused chips from the former casino, which later became the Trump World’s Fair annex to Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. Division Director David Rebuck wrote in a ruling that the fund was meant to benefit original patrons of the casino who had winnings and was not an open-ended invitation for subsequent acquirers of such chips to cash them in.
“At this time, any such chips are most likely to have been obtained by gift, inheritance or sale from the secondary market,” Rebuck wrote in his July 7 ruling. “The fund held by (the state) Treasury was meant for the benefit of the original patrons who have winnings to claim.”
The Playboy completed construction in 1982, but Playboy Enterprises CEO Hugh Hefner was denied a casino license. Playboy sold the property to Elsinore, the joint-venture partner that operated the casino. After the property operated briefly as Elsinore’s Atlantis, it was acquired by the Trump Organization and linked to the Plaza, the neighboring casino that shared a corridor with the city’s Boardwalk Hall.
Despite the fact Playboy had contracted a company to destroy the uncirculated Playboy chips in inventory, it was never done, and the chips remained in circulation.
“Almost 40 years have passed since the casino property, which no longer exists, was operated under the Playboy name. This is more than sufficient time for actual Playboy gamblers to have redeemed any chips or other instruments of gaming winnings owed by the former casino,” Rebuck said in the ruling.
