Tom Pohlman
Tom Pohlman has been general manager of the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City for 15 years. He was appointed when owner Tilman Fertitta bought it from the Trump organization in 2011.
Pohlman admits the property is one of Atlantic City’s also-rans. But he believes its amenities and service make it stand above its competitors. He met with GGB Editor at Large Roger Gros in September. Listen to the full audio GGB Podcast of this interview here.
GGB: By all accounts, we’ve just completed a very successful summer in Atlantic City. How was it at the Golden Nugget?
Pohlman: It definitely was better than previous summers. We’re not back to where we were pre-Covid; in August year-to-date, we were just under $2 billion in gross gaming revenue for brick-and-mortar. Online gaming was at about $1.9 billion. Then add about another $700 million for sports.
When you extract that brick-and-mortar revenue, there are really three properties that are excelling right now—Borgata, Hard Rock and Ocean. For the smaller properties, it’s a fight to the finish. We’re all fighting for the same customers. So overall, it’s better than we’ve seen over the last five years, but not quite where we were or where we’d like to be.
One advantage is that you actually run the Farley State Marina attached to your facility. Tell us how that impacts your business.
It’s a state-owned marina. We manage it. What most people don’t realize is that we’re also on the hook for any capital investments at the marina. But it does bring us 640 slips. We’re the smallest hotel and casino. We’ve got 717 hotel rooms. So in the summertime, we benefit most if we’re at 75 percent to 80 percent occupancy in the marina. It brings an extra 500 rooms to our property, bodies on property in our most critical time of the year.
Another positive is free parking, which no other casino has. How does this make sense for you?
We pay $4 per every car that parks on property. We’re eating that expense. Back in the day, I did an analysis: 75 percent of our customers were receiving free parking anyway, based on their tier status or what they had earned. We were looking for a big marketing message, and free parking came up. Last year we did try charging for parking, but it didn’t work. So we went back to free parking, all day, every day.
Golden Nugget has always been a leader in online gaming. What does that mean for property revenue?
Tilman has always been a visionary. Where other properties focused on third parties to get them started, Tilman invested his own money and hired one of the most knowledgeable online gaming operators I know, Thomas Winter. Thomas was responsible for creating GoldenNuggetCasino.com, and we took it public in December 2020.
Fast forward to 2022, and DraftKings acquired Golden Nugget Online in an all-stock deal valued at about $1.5 billion. Prior to that transaction, we benefited more heavily on the online. But now, everything is rev share-based. It’s a significant percentage, but we also just had a tax increase on online revenue. So we’ll see how that plays out.
You have some day-one employees from Trump Castle back in the day. How do you keep morale up?
It’s making sure they have a voice at the table. I don’t expect everybody to agree with the decisions we’re making. But one thing I do is explain to them why we’re doing something.
We are a business. We’re not a nonprofit. No business owner wants to make less money than the year before and the year before that. So we’re constantly changing the way we operate to be more efficient, become more profitable or improve margins. I explain to our team why we’re doing things, getting their feedback, asking how can we improve and what can we do to be better. I’ve always believed in transparency and honesty. I believe they respect that I’m being honest with them, and I’m not trying to sugarcoat things.
