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.
