If anyone in the Trump empire is troubled by the contrast between the overwhelming opulence of this massive hotel and the crumbling, boarded-up homes a few blocks away, they're not letting on. The billionaire developer had planned to showcase Maples at an April 5 gala here, but later disinvited her, saying her presence would be 'inappropriate.' Maples put out a statement calling Trump 'truly an honorable man,' but saying she had worried 'how the public and his family might perceive the invitation.' Last week, according to one source, Trump called the ex-beauty queen and ended the relationship.Įven sans Maples, the festivities will hardly be low-key, not with an agenda ranging from fireworks to a laser-powered ribbon cutting to an 'Arabian Nights' skit featuring The Donald himself. People are just amazed at the opulence.'Ībout the only ornament the Taj will be lacking is Marla Maples, the sultry Georgia actress and alleged Other Woman in Trump's soap-opera divorce. The overall majesty of the building is what's going to attract people. 'We're calling it the eighth wonder of the world. 'It's truly going to be an incredible place,' he says with typical understatement. Analysts say the Taj must earn $1 million a day from gambling just to break even, and that it may wind up stealing customers from Trump's other two slot machine palaces down the Boardwalk. Yet for all its glitz, glitter and pseudo-Indian architecture, some analysts say the Taj represents an unprecedented roll of the dice for Trump, who floated $675 million in junk bonds to build the thing and must come up with $94 million a year to pay the debt service. With more than 3,000 slot machines and 167 blackjack, roulette and other gaming tables, the Taj will boost Atlantic City's gambling capacity by 20 percent when it opens April 2. This is the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, a behemoth of a building about to be thrust upon the world by Donald Trump, who already owns a sizable chunk of this South Jersey resort town. To the left, in a raised area beneath a mirrored ceiling, bolder customers can seat themselves at the $100 slots while attendants hover nearby with hot towels. To the right, under the hand-cut Austrian crystal chandeliers, is a game where players can win the BMW sitting right there on the floor. A blinking computerized sign announces the latest jackpot. Row after row of identical slot machines, topped by a silent cacophony of flashing red and blue lights, stretch along the length of two football fields. Past the onion-domed facade, past the cascading fountains, past the bejeweled, eight-foot-high elephants, past the turban-clad doormen, one finally emerges into the dizzying vastness of the world's largest casino.

Trump's atlantic city casino