Watching a Foxwoods Resort Casino shift change is a lot like watching a newly docked ship empty its crew.
Food and beverage workers were first off the buses running between the remote employee parking lot Saturday morning. Then, dealers started entering the mix of passengers bundled against the chill and wind. A subsequent bus deposited a load of valets in their insulated jackets identifying them as such.
Finally, in the tradition of ship stokers of years past and Navy submarine nukes of today, the engineering staff emerged from buses, a final set of stragglers with some still clad in their poopy suit coveralls. They are fresh from the bowels of the casino's mechanical plant where they have spent the last eight hours or so tending to the systems that keep the buildings running.
The waves of departing workers ebbed within minutes. They ducked into cars for the ride home and left the lot waiting for the next tide.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Lemme get your digits...
At the middle of each month, Connecticut's two casinos send spreadsheets to the state’s Division of Special Revenue.
They are, at first glance, intimidating in an accounting way that makes non-mathies’ eyes glaze over, their jaws go slack and a puddle of drool form on the floor. Others, intimidated by strings of as many as 12 numbers in a row, flee screaming and are never really able to pull themselves together again to the point where they can balance a checkbook without large doses of Valium.
And, each month, newspapers report the basics from these spreadsheets — the total amount of money played by visitors (also known as the “handle”), the amount of money played not paid out (also known as the “win” or “keep”), the average number of machines in play for the month and, of course, the number everyone wants to know, just how much Connecticut will see out of that win.
Poke around a little more and you’ll see another story in the numbers. A story of an economic engine most in Connecticut, even our part of the state, don’t often stop to think about.
In September, the 1,633, 1-cent machines at Mohegan Sun had the highest handle - $179,119,531.74. That’s $2.54 going through each machine every minute of the month.
At Foxwoods Resort Casino, the 1,995, 25-cent machines saw the highest play with $156,269,601.09. So, for every minute of September, $1.81 went through each of those machines at Foxwoods.
Combine the two categories of machines and that’s the equivalent to the price of a large Dunkin’ Donuts Coolatta being played in each every minute for a month.
Of course, only about 1 percent to 15 percent of that money played is kept by the casinos....And, of that, Connecticut municipalities see only 25 percent — or, on average, 9 cents made every minute at every machine in those two categories.
Every month it changes. The numbers are never the same. Better grab your calculators, Nov. 15 is just days away.
They are, at first glance, intimidating in an accounting way that makes non-mathies’ eyes glaze over, their jaws go slack and a puddle of drool form on the floor. Others, intimidated by strings of as many as 12 numbers in a row, flee screaming and are never really able to pull themselves together again to the point where they can balance a checkbook without large doses of Valium.
And, each month, newspapers report the basics from these spreadsheets — the total amount of money played by visitors (also known as the “handle”), the amount of money played not paid out (also known as the “win” or “keep”), the average number of machines in play for the month and, of course, the number everyone wants to know, just how much Connecticut will see out of that win.
Poke around a little more and you’ll see another story in the numbers. A story of an economic engine most in Connecticut, even our part of the state, don’t often stop to think about.
In September, the 1,633, 1-cent machines at Mohegan Sun had the highest handle - $179,119,531.74. That’s $2.54 going through each machine every minute of the month.
At Foxwoods Resort Casino, the 1,995, 25-cent machines saw the highest play with $156,269,601.09. So, for every minute of September, $1.81 went through each of those machines at Foxwoods.
Combine the two categories of machines and that’s the equivalent to the price of a large Dunkin’ Donuts Coolatta being played in each every minute for a month.
Of course, only about 1 percent to 15 percent of that money played is kept by the casinos....And, of that, Connecticut municipalities see only 25 percent — or, on average, 9 cents made every minute at every machine in those two categories.
Every month it changes. The numbers are never the same. Better grab your calculators, Nov. 15 is just days away.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Ponies and postcards
Gazing across the racetrack at Yonkers Raceway on a clear Wednesday morning just north of New York City, I thought of my grandmother.
Which would have driven her nuts.
Before you conjure a mental image of an elderly, Polish woman chomping on a cigar and plunking down cash on the ponies, my grandmother hated racing — dogs, horses didn't matter.
Her disdain for the activity was passive. She politely read through Christmas cards from friends such nicknames as Spike and Toots talking about their days at the dog track. She sighed as she found another letter in the mailbox written from her oldest sister on a free postcard from the Florida horse track where my Great Aunt Stella and her husband vacationed. By the time Stella stopped making the seasonal trips, Grandma had a sizable stack in the chest where she kept family photos, newspaper clippings and baby books.
There was hushed talk of massive amounts of money won and lost over the course of an evening or weekend. And, over the years, an unspoken rule evolved that gambling at a track was just not done in our part of the family.
I’ve been to a handful of tracks in my life. I’ve never put a single bet down — first out of fear and now out of ignorance. Tracks are a foreign country with language, rules and etiquette I just can’t grasp.
There’s not a lot of crossover between who comes to play the slots and who puts money down on the dogs and horses that run. And, judging by those who were at each facility for the racing, it’s only a matter of a dozen years or so before the die-hard generation is gone.
Which would have driven her nuts.
Before you conjure a mental image of an elderly, Polish woman chomping on a cigar and plunking down cash on the ponies, my grandmother hated racing — dogs, horses didn't matter.
Her disdain for the activity was passive. She politely read through Christmas cards from friends such nicknames as Spike and Toots talking about their days at the dog track. She sighed as she found another letter in the mailbox written from her oldest sister on a free postcard from the Florida horse track where my Great Aunt Stella and her husband vacationed. By the time Stella stopped making the seasonal trips, Grandma had a sizable stack in the chest where she kept family photos, newspaper clippings and baby books.
There was hushed talk of massive amounts of money won and lost over the course of an evening or weekend. And, over the years, an unspoken rule evolved that gambling at a track was just not done in our part of the family.
I’ve been to a handful of tracks in my life. I’ve never put a single bet down — first out of fear and now out of ignorance. Tracks are a foreign country with language, rules and etiquette I just can’t grasp.
There’s not a lot of crossover between who comes to play the slots and who puts money down on the dogs and horses that run. And, judging by those who were at each facility for the racing, it’s only a matter of a dozen years or so before the die-hard generation is gone.
Wednesday at Yonkers and a week ago at Twin River in Lincoln, R.I., I found myself gazing out toward the track with curiosity. A pal in Cleveland has offered to teach me a little about betting on horses and I might just take him up on that — mostly because it is a part of my job but also because it will remind me, however tangentially, of a era of cheek-squeezing, hard-fishing Polish great aunts and uncles now passed.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Taken to the river
Wandering through Twin River on Wednesday on a tour led by George Papanier, chief operating officer of casino owners BLB Investors, LLC, it was hard to ignore just how much room there is to grow at the site. It left me, a non-native of the Nutmeg state, wondering if this is what Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun were like in their early years....
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Hong Kong horsies
We wandered into the race book at Foxwoods Resort Casino a little after 1 a.m. Sunday, just a minute or two after the first simulcast race from the Hong Kong Jockey Club's Sha Tin racetrack had ended. Announcers switched off between English and Cantonese and there seemed to be some dispute in regards to the outcome of the race, the first to be broadcast as part of a brand-new, five-year agreement.
It looked like a lovely afternoon in Hong Kong, 12 hours down the clock from Eastern Connecticut. At the track, women in pastel suits watched as the next race's equines paraded before them.
While it was a new experience for my visitors from Boston, I had been to the race book before - a massive, darkened room with huge screens, ever-changing track lists to rival the world's most busy airports and train stations, dozens of carrels with monitors and a handful of bettors hunched at their desk considering all of the information scrolling around them. Unlike the rest of the casino, the race book is quiet and free of the electronic slot machine chatter that soaks the rest of Foxwoods. If the rest of the casino is like the floor of a mercantile exchange, the race book is more like a NASA control room or the war room of a bunker deep inside a mountain. Dr. Strangelove, anyone?
And, at 1:15 on Sunday morning, it was near empty. Even the cocktail waitress had stopped making her rounds. My friends and I sat down, played with the touch-screen monitors and found the horses we'd root for - but not bet on - in the second race. I chose Pleasure Pleasure, my friend, Abigail, went with Glorious Rhythm.
Neither came remotely close to winning and we left the race book to the handful of night owls placing bets on horses half a world away.
It looked like a lovely afternoon in Hong Kong, 12 hours down the clock from Eastern Connecticut. At the track, women in pastel suits watched as the next race's equines paraded before them.
While it was a new experience for my visitors from Boston, I had been to the race book before - a massive, darkened room with huge screens, ever-changing track lists to rival the world's most busy airports and train stations, dozens of carrels with monitors and a handful of bettors hunched at their desk considering all of the information scrolling around them. Unlike the rest of the casino, the race book is quiet and free of the electronic slot machine chatter that soaks the rest of Foxwoods. If the rest of the casino is like the floor of a mercantile exchange, the race book is more like a NASA control room or the war room of a bunker deep inside a mountain. Dr. Strangelove, anyone?
And, at 1:15 on Sunday morning, it was near empty. Even the cocktail waitress had stopped making her rounds. My friends and I sat down, played with the touch-screen monitors and found the horses we'd root for - but not bet on - in the second race. I chose Pleasure Pleasure, my friend, Abigail, went with Glorious Rhythm.
Neither came remotely close to winning and we left the race book to the handful of night owls placing bets on horses half a world away.
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