"We will show you how to safely gamble, bet and play online."
B. Paul, Editor, Bonusgambler.com
|
On the Mohegan Sun casino
The invitation was irresistible. "Come visit the Casino of the Sun", it said. Have fun. It promised a detailed and lingering tour of a vast new $1 billion complex whose architecture and decor would astonish you, and it spoke alluringly of grand restaurants guaranteed to please even the most fastidious palate.
It also promised "a legendary gaming experience" and entertainment of many kinds, all on the same spot: the Mohegan Sun, a vast complex that spreads across the landscape of Eastern Connecticut along the Thames River, a few miles north of New London.
It all belongs to the Mohegan Indians -- the same tribe that James Fenimore Cooper wrote about in The Last of the Mohicans and which he mistakenly thought was gone from the face of the Earth. Five years ago, these American Indians opened the Casino of the Earth -- 180,000 square feet of gambling and entertainment space that is generating annual earnings of $700 million. Now the press has been invited to witness the tribe's new addition, the Casino of the Sun, which increases that space to 315,000 square feet and offers a long list of other "gotta-visit" attractions: 22 new restaurants and retail outlets, in addition to the old section's 18, for a total of 40.
In April 2002, the Mohegan Sun's 34-storey hotel is scheduled to open. Mohegan officials say they expect the center's earnings to climb to $1 billion in one to two years, despite the recent economic downturn and the war on terrorism. They also predict that 3,500 new employees will be added to the already more than 10,000 now working at the center, making it a major employer in New England.
The Casino of the Sun's opening was low-key. Originally plans had been big: "Pyrotechnics and much else" Mohegan Tribal Council Chairman Mark Brown [see Picture Profile, p. 36] tells Insight. But the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 puts the quietus on those plans. Officials opted for a ribbon-cutting ceremony along with a long moment of silence for those lost at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.
A large American flag hung during the short ceremony. Tribal elder Ernest Gilman -- a career Navy man, now retired, whose Mohegan name is Kiwa -- lit a small fire that sent a slender column of smoke into the air, chanted for a short time in what was said to be Mohegan and then translated: "Thanks to the Creator. The Creator is good. Enjoy!"
It was a short and sweet introduction to the vast new casino. Insight has visited other Indian gaming places all over the United States, including Foxwoods, the Pequot tribe's humongous eastern Connecticut casino only 18 miles distant from the Mohegan tribe's undertaking. But the Mohegan Sun's invitation had promised something different from the standard gambling scene: a place intended for more than a center for gaming and good times, even though those are its prime purpose; a complex that in addition would convey what it means to be a Mohegan. And, to an amazing extent, it delivers on that promise.
Slot machines of course are everywhere -- more than 6,000 of them -- along with other games -- blackjack, roulette, craps, baccarat, to name only a few. And most of the 40,000 or so souls at opening day appeared to be avidly engaged in making use of them all. What's different at the Mohegan Sun is that, first, the place is noticeably less gaudy than most casinos (though it assuredly glitters spectacularly) and, second, there's been a conscious, painstaking effort to weave the tribe's own history and mythology into the complex's art and architecture, right down to the smallest detail.
A casino short on gaudiness? Well, yes. It's one of the first things, for instance, that Sal (Mohegan employees wear name tags bearing their first names only), a 22-year veteran of the gambling business, tells Insight. Sal says he helped "bring gambling to Atlantic City [N.J.]" then worked at gaming houses in New Orleans (which he didn't like because "folks there prefer drinking to gambling") and on the Gulf Coast. Sal is now a floor manager at Mohegan Sun. He quickly runs down casinos in Las Vegas. Why? "Because there are too many gaudy lights there. Not like here".
It's a sentiment shared by tribal elder Gilman. The Mohegan Sun is "nothing flashy", he insists to Insight. "I wouldn't have it any other way". It's a matter of tribal pride. Gilman, now 67, is the grandnephew of the Mohegan tribe's most esteemed member and medicine woman -- Gladys Tantaquidgeon, who was born in 1899 and now is 102. It's a relationship that has helped him keep his Mohegan origins always in mind. "I always knew who I was and where I came from", he says, even when his employer, the U.S. Navy, sent him far away. He's pleased with the Mohegan Sun because there's so much of the Mohegan "past in the place, so many things I know as a Mohegan".
Source: BonusGambler.com Editors' Choice
|
Gambling Help Resources:
