Slotted out?

There's long been a question of just how much demand there is in the New England gambling market. When Foxwoods Resort Casino opened, there was nothing like it until Atlantic City, N.J., and it added slot machines by the hundreds through the years.

Mohegan Sun came along and now, almost 17 years later, the landscape is very, very different. There's a beefed up racino with 4,750 machines sitting at Twin River racino in Lincoln, R.I., and 5,300 machines at Empire City Casino in Yonkers, N.Y.

Of course, any casino expansion is going to add slot machines — they're the engines that will help pay for the construction. But, with almost 6,000 machines at Mohegan (and 800 more or so due next month) and another 8,100 at Foxwoods, it cannot come as a complete surprise that play is down in Connecticut. Credit analysts expect the market eventually will sop up the additional number of machines brought in by expansions, but the economy has allowed for that just yet.

An interesting market to watch will be northeast Pennsylvania, though. Mohegan Sun opened their $208 million Project Sunrise expansion just outside of Wilkes-Barre on Thursday and President Bobby Soper has long said the old facility's 1,200 slot machines could barely keep up with demand on weekends. Whether 2,600 slots will be too many or just enough in that area remains to be seen.