Story highlights Donald Trump went on a spending spree in the 1980s after the success of his Trump Tower

The Taj Mahal casino became the biggest bet of Trump's career, but his luck ran out

(CNN) As the Republican presidential nominee faces mounting scrutiny over his income taxes and his refusal to release them, the public has no definitive accounting about what Donald Trump did or did not pay the government.

But the story of his business losses is in plain sight throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, a period, in which, he amassed nearly $1 billion dollars of personal debt.

Once gambling was legalized in the late 1970's, a sleepy New Jersey shore town transformed into a gaming hot spot. That's when Trump bet big on Atlantic City by amassing property along the boardwalk.

"When casino gaming came into Atlantic City, it was a monopoly," says Marvin Roffman, a former gaming analyst for a prominent financial services firm. "They had basically the whole eastern market to themselves and everyone was looking for land to build a casino."

Trump, basking in the success of building the Trump Tower in New York City, liked those odds. In 1984, he opened Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino and the following year he opened Trump's Castle. It was all part of Trump's spending spree in the late 1980s that included the iconic Plaza Hotel in New York, the famed Palm Beach Estate Mar-A-Lago, the Eastern Air shuttle which he renamed the Trump Shuttle, the 282-foot Trump Princess yacht and the largest tract of undeveloped land on the west side of Manhattan.

Read More