TRENTON — The businessmen leading a group trying to spur support for a November ballot referendum to bring casinos to northern New Jersey all but conceded defeat Thursday when they abruptly ended their advertising campaign. 

But one of the two leaders of Our Turn NJ, developer Jeff Gural, said even if voters do reject the ballot question, he plans to revive his proposal to build a casino at his Meadowlands Racetrack in two years.

Gural told NJ Advance Media on Friday that he has "no choice" because the track won't survive without adding a casino to it. 

"Horse racing in New Jersey has been destroyed," Gural said a day after he and his partner, former Reebok CEO Paul Fireman, announced Our Turn NJ was ending their campaign 47 days before voting take place. "I thought if I built a beautiful facility and offered to give the taxpayers $500 million a year, people would get on the bandwagon. Not this year."

"Eventually, there will be a casino at the Meadowlands," Gural added. "There has to be."

North Jersey casino effort doomed? 

Gural needs the referendum to pass to build his casino because Atlantic City is currently the only place where gambling halls are legally allowed.

And if the referendum is rejected Nov. 8, state lawmakers would have to wait two years to attempt to put it on the ballot again — meaning Gural can't pitch his project again until 2018. 

Of course, the referendum could still surprise everyone by passing. But Gural and Fireman — who proposed building a casino in Jersey City — said internal polling showed the referendum was clearly poised to fail.

And they blamed that in part on the advertising by an opposition group called Trenton's Bad Bet, run by casino unions and Genting Group, the Malaysian company that operates the Resorts World casino at the Aqueduct Racetrack in New York City, which could be hurt by north Jersey casinos.

That group focused not on how expanding gambling would hurt Atlantic City but on how taxpayers couldn't trust New Jersey politicians over the issue. For example, while Gural and Fireman had proposed casinos sites, state lawmakers have not yet specified where the gambling halls would be built or how much in taxes they would pay. 

Gural called it a "brilliant strategy" that caught fire in the year of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has pushed a message that politicians are corrupt and can't be trusted.

"It was a throw-the-bums-out attitude," he said. "You're seeing that all over. That's Trump's message. That was Bernie Sanders' message. The mood of the country is this anti-government message. It was something we weren't expecting."

Gural said message seemed to stick more than the his group was pushing: that northern casinos will bring millions of dollars in revenue, create thousands of jobs, send money to seniors and Atlantic City, and keep the state competitive in the northeastern gaming market.

"It's shocking to me that nobody wants my $500 million," he said.

Gural said he's not sure if Fireman would come back in 2018 and push his Jersey City proposal again. Fireman's company has not responded to a message seeking comment.

But Gural said the "biggest loser here" is Atlantic City, which has seen a string of casinos close in recent years, obliterating its tax base. Part of the deal would have sent money to the ailing resort. 

"They have no shot at survival now," he said. "There's no money to rebuild Atlantic City now."

Rummy Pandit, director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality, and Tourism at Stockton University, disagreed. 

He predicted that Atlantic City will find new ways to reinvent itself as an entertainment destination — focused not just on gaming, but hotels, food, concerts, and more. 

Pandit said Atlantic City's revenue now is almost 70 percent gaming and 30 percent non-gaming. The model, he said, is Las Vegas, which is 35 percent gaming and 65 non-gaming. 

"I believe Atlantic City will innovate and grow," Pandit said.

Brent Johnson may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.