Fiscal Riddle Confronts Casino Panel

New Jersey's casino regulators are to answer on Thursday a question that amplifies the crash alert sounding throughout the once high-flying casino industry here. Can a casino -- in this case Donald Trump's billion-dollar Taj Mahal -- be "financially stable" despite being bankrupt?

If the answer is no, renewal of the Taj Mahal's license would be in doubt, though with 5,000 jobs involved, a decision to shut down the casino is considered unlikely. That answer would also mean that other casinos having trouble paying off high-interest bonds issued in the 80's would suddenly find bankruptcy an extremely difficult way to solve their problems.

After more than 10 years of growth, the casino industry is tiptoeing into the 1990's plagued with enormous debt, declining revenues and a static or shrinking market. Too Big a Load

A year ago, when the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort opened its doors amid firing lasers and blaring trumpets, there was already unease in the industry and questions about whether the Taj, the biggest and by far the most expensive pleasure palace in the city, could survive with a financial structure that required a million dollars a day in winnings just to pay the debts and keep the ice buckets filled.

The Taj came close: in March, it made its monthly goal with a win of nearly $32 million. But it has fallen short often enough that this week, in hearings before the Casino Control Commission, Mr. Trump and a phalanx of lawyers and accountants agreed that the Taj could survive only with further massive infusions of cash from banks, the restructuring of at least $675 million in debt and protection from its creditors through bankruptcy.

It is not the first casino to throw itself into bankruptcy in recent years, nor, say owners, analysts and regulators, is it likely to be the last. Besides the Taj, 10 of the city's 11 other casinos took in far less in the first three months of this year than last, and no one is sure when revenue will rise again.

The crisis in the industry as exemplified by the problems at the Taj Mahal has required serious rethinking among regulators here. Not the least is the need to define just what they mean by "financial stability," after years in which money pouring in to the casinos made the question moot.

But the Casino Control Commission's new chairman, Steven P. Perskie, who wrote the legislation creating the casinos as a State Senator 14 years ago and who was appointed to regulate them six months ago, says the commission is partly flying blind: While the Casino Control Act mandates that casinos and owners present "clear and convincing evidence" of their "financial stability," nothing in the statutes or regulations defines the terms.

The commission is hiring a financial consultant for guidance, but in the meantime, its five members must decide on their own if that test is met. Comeback by Griffin

Twice before, the commission has allowed casinos under bankruptcy protection to go on operating: the ailing Atlantis in 1987 and Merv Griffin's Resorts International in 1989.

The Atlantis emerged from bankruptcy several months later, but went back in and folded for good in 1989. Mr. Griffin reorganized Resorts and came out of bankruptcy last year; his was the only casino to do better this year.

Mr. Trump's Taj Mahal is not now actually in bankruptcy, but he and his advisers have told the commission they will file a "prepackaged" Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in June, and that the filing in fact is part of its proof that it is, or can be, "financially stable."

Mr. Perskie makes clear that the new definition of stability to be worked out by the commission and its consultant, probably by the end of the year, will not affect present licenseholders like Mr. Trump, who operates two other casinos, the Trump Castle and the Trump Plaza, in Atlantic City.

Hearings on their licenses will be heard at the end of the month, and Mr. Trump's own financial situation will again be at issue. In the current licensing proceeding, it appears precarious.

Mr. Trump -- once worth $1.5 billion by his own account -- has only about $1.6 million in his personal bank account, according to documents he filed with the commission.

Figures provided to the Division of Gaming Enforcement by the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump's company, show that he can remain solvent through 1993, but the positive projections are based on new loans and agreements that "have not yet been entered into" for financial relief from financial institutions.

Moreover, the positive projections are contingent on other projected but unrealized income. These include the predicted sale in July -- to an unspecified buyer -- of the Trump Princess yacht for $40 million, his Boeing 727 jetliner for an unspecified amount "in the near future" and a series of as yet unrealized bank deals.

The Division of Gaming Enforcement noted that it had not "verified any of these representations with any of the creditors."

Thus, based on earlier projections that did not include the optimistic assumptions, "the Trump Organization will be insolvent in the near future if it is not already," the division said. But its report concluded, "if the Trump Organization can provide evidence that supports the assumptions" behind the new projections, "then financial stability could be demonstrated."

If Mr. Trump is to keep his license, four of the five commissioners must be convinced.