Like kids demanding to open their presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning, Atlantic City’s two new/old casinos opened their doors to the public one day ahead of schedule.

Both the Hard Rock Atlantic City and the Ocean Resort Casino were scheduled to open to the public by mid-day Thursday but both venues decided to throw caution to the wind after the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement authorized their launch by mid-afternoon Wednesday.

The Hard Rock (the revamped Trump Taj Mahal) began welcoming gamblers around 3pm, while the Ocean Resort (the de-mothballed Revel) followed suit less than an hour later. Both properties insist their scheduled grand openings will go ahead as planned although the allure of these events has obviously been muted somewhat.

Todd Moyer, the Hard Rock venue’s senior VP of marketing, told the Associated Press that last-minute preparations for the grand opening were still underway, “but the heavy lifting has been done.”