By Adam Fine

The drive from Atlantic City to far eastern Connecticut is a daunting one. The numbing roll of the Garden State Parkway gives way to uproarious traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, which only gets worse as the Manhattan skyline comes into view. Up around the Lincoln Tunnel, it starts getting dangerously congested, and by the time the blue steel arches of the George Washington Bridge loom in the windshield, the knuckles are white with terror and frustration. This leads into the Major Deegan Expressway, through the bowels of the Bronx, and finally into Westchester, when it begins to ease off a bit. From here, I-95 hugs Connecticut’s shoreline, past New Haven, until, at last, it eases into Rhode Island.

Not a journey for the faint-hearted. So daunting, in fact, is the traffic up here, where Manhattan spills into its upstate suburbs, that it forms a dividing line between those who gamble in Atlantic City, and those who gamble in Connecticut.

There are, of course, exceptions. If you live in Brooklyn or Queens, you can avoid the Manhattan congestion by cutting north into Westchester. This is probably just as fast as heading west over the Verrazano Bridge into Staten Island, and to New Jersey beyond. Where do you want to gamble today? North of exit 150 on the Parkway, you go to Foxwoods. South of 150, you go to Atlantic City. If you want to fly, take your choice. Philadelphia is an hour from Atlantic City; Providence and Hartford are an hour from Foxwoods.

Seven years ago, this choice didn’t exist. If you wanted to gamble, you went to Atlantic City or Nevada, period. But when a small Native American tribe called the Mashantucket Pequots opened their Foxwoods High Stakes Bingo & Casino on February 15, 1992, gaming’s very foundation shook. It was the dawn of a new era in the gambling world, and Foxwoods, deep in the wooded heart of an astonished Connecticut, was at the center of it.

A casino is the last thing you’d expect to find in this rural corner of southeastern Connecticut. This is a quiet, heavily forested region, with endlessly winding roads that only occasionally slow down to meander through small towns. The trees here are so dense, the gabled houses and barn silos seem to have grown out of them, a natural product of the wood and soil.

Mystic and New London, the two largest towns in the area, are tied to a past of shipping and naval activity. Mystic is the smaller and more attractive of the two, a sleepy village of antique shops and sea lore, blustery in the cold months, the wind whipping off Long Island Sound. In the warmer months, people gather to walk its quaint streets and admire its abundance of 19th Century homes, all in excellent condition, a testament to the Yankee sensibility that permeates the air like thick clam chowder.

These are silent, unhurried places, big of heart and hearth, the sort of homes one dreams of traveling to for Thanksgiving dinner, or waking up in on Christmas morning. And when the family begins arguing and the Rockwell-inspired fantasy comes to an end, the largest casino in the world is only minutes away. Incongruous, yes, but open 24 hours.

If Foxwoods were the only casino in the area, the only major Northeastern casino outside of Atlantic City, it would be anomaly enough; but Foxwoods lost its monopoly in October, 1996, when the nearby Mohegan tribe opened its spectacular Mohegan Sun casino, a joint partnership with South African casino conglomerate Sun International.

The Mohegan Sun is the fourth largest casino in the country. Even without a hotel tower, it still manages to pack in impressive crowds who see it as a "boutique" casino—a smaller, more colorful option to its massive neighbor. Without hotel rooms, the place is pretty much a drive-in paradise. Crowded by day, packed on weekends, empty after last call.

When the Mohegan casino opened, gaming analysts forecasted a gloomy road ahead for Foxwoods. Without its casino monopoly, they thought, it would lose a chunk of its play to Mohegan, and that would be that. Big mistake. Foxwoods certainly experienced a dip in revenues, but has since more than made up for any losses. Rather than cannibalize the market, Mohegan Sun actually expanded it. This news has been joyfully received by both casinos, and was enough to convince Mohegan Sun execs to move forward with plans for a hotel tower and expanded casino. The numbers these two casinos generate is frightening; some estimate their combined revenues to be about 40 percent of Atlantic City’s total revenues.

One thing players will not experience in Connecticut is a marketing war between the casinos. The two share what appears to be a controlled dŽtente, with no odds wars, no cashback, and no heavy couponing—in short, nothing anyone who frequents Atlantic City is used to. That doesn’t mean the slot clubs are poorly structured—they are definitely competitive—but neither casino sees any reason to trim its margins. Naturally, all of this could change when Mohegan Sun opens its room tower and expands its casino, but that’s still a long way off. In the mean time, no one’s complaining.

There are as many opinions of Foxwoods as there are slot machines on its floor (about 5,700). Remarkably, some of the property’s most vocal opponents have never even seen it. Yes, Foxwoods is certainly large. Bigger than large. Massive, perhaps. Colossal. But that doesn’t mean it lacks polish. It is, in fact, a very attractive hotel casino. What it lacks in intimacy it makes up for in variety, and even so, there are some very pleasant, very human-scale lounges and restaurants.

Actually, there are 24 food and beverages outlets in the entire Foxwoods complex, ranging from gourmet dining to fast food. Al Dente and The Bistro explore the highs and lows of Italian food; Han Garden and Golden Dragon serve variations on traditional Cantonese and not-so-traditional Asian cuisine; Fox Harbour specializes in New England seafood; and Cedars Steak House serves traditional steaks and chops. A variety of secondary restaurants, including a deli, a food court and what must be the largest buffet on the planet, round out the offerings. The Intermezzo Lounge is particularly appealing for quiet, pre-dinner cocktails.

But that’s not what Foxwoods is about. Rather, Foxwoods is about numerical superlatives. Numbers so large, they hardly seem real. The largest casino in the world. The most profitable casino in the world. Forty-thousand dinner covers on a single night. Nearly $2 million in slot revenue a day (that’s about $20 per second). There isn’t a casino on earth that even comes close to duplicating these numbers.

Foxwoods floats above the trees like the painted background of a Hollywood fantasy. The only indication that there’s any activity in the area is the steady stream of cars on Route 2, headlight after headlight in the dusk. No rural, winding country road ever has traffic, but this one has plenty. One wonders how the local communities have dealt with this urban onslaught, since precious little of the casinos’ tax revenues are earmarked for local use.

First, the Great Cedar hotel comes into view, abrupt and from out of nowhere, and then the impressive Grand Pequot Tower, dwarfing the smaller hotel at three times its height. That this complex of glass and steel even appears at all is disconcerting, here in Connecticut’s remotest corner.

First-time visitors to Foxwoods will find the layout confusing. Rather than one casino, as many assume it to be, Foxwoods actually has six casinos located throughout the complex, giving it a total of 314,000 sq. ft. of gaming space—almost double the size of the MGM Grand, the largest casino in Las Vegas. Not all of the six casinos have table games, but all of them have slot machines, in row after mind-numbing row.

The main complaint levied against Foxwoods is that its casino areas are sterile and poorly-designed. Change areas are sparse, and to get anywhere, it’s a hike. Others complain that the machine selection needs to be upgraded—that the casino is currently locked in an IGT time warp, with precious few of the new machines that have taken gaming by storm.

Management is aware of these problems, and will address them in a variety of ways this year. But in order to see where Foxwoods is going, it’s necessary to look back and see where it’s been.

The Foxwoods gaming story begins in 1986, with the opening of a high-stakes bingo hall. The original Foxwoods Casino opened in 1992, at a cost of $60 million, with a 46,000 sq. ft. gaming area that featured 170 table games. Although table games were not technically legal in the state, the Mashantuckets were permitted to offer them because of a state law permitting table games for charitable purposes.

In 1993, after considerable lobbying, a Memorandum of Understanding between the Tribe and the State of Connecticut was executed, allowing the tribe to operate lucrative slot machines at Foxwoods. In return, the tribe agreed to pay the state 25 percent of its slot machine win, unless the state legalized slot machines anywhere else within the state, or if any other entity were permitted to operate slot machines. (The tribe modified the agreement in 1994 to permit the Mohegan tribe to operate slot machines, with no cessation of tax payments to the state.)

In November of 1993, a $240 million expansion quintupled Foxwoods’ size to 1.3 million sq. ft. Now known as Foxwoods Resort Casino, the facility included five large gaming rooms, a theater complex, 23 retail shops, 25 kiosk carts, five full-service restaurants, a beauty salon and a small health spa. The Great Cedars Hotel and nearby Two Trees Inn offered a combined 594 rooms. The expansion brought the number of table games to 234, and slot machines to approximately 2,650.

In June 1994, the casino expanded yet again, this time relocating the bingo hall to its present area, and adding enough slot machines to bring the count to 3,864. By March of 1996, the facility added on a new, two-level casino that offered a non-smoking gambling area. Table games were brought to 308, and slot machines to 4,244.

By the end of 1997, Foxwoods opened its 23-story Grand Pequot Tower, adding an additional 829 rooms and 50,000 sq. ft. of new gaming space (including 958 slots and 60 table games), as well as two new upscale restaurants, an attractive lounge and a 24-hour coffee shop.

The Grand Pequot Tower, with its concierge and villa levels, parlors on every floor, upscale suites and full-service spa, completes Foxwoods as a premier resort. The Pequot Casino offers the resort’s first true high-end gaming areas, allowing Foxwoods to pursue the same wealthy international crowd as Atlantic City. An argument can be made that for guests flying into New York’s Kennedy Airport, the ride to Foxwoods is faster and more comfortable than the ride to Atlantic City—especially on Foxwoods’ posh super-buses, deployed especially to meet Asian and South American junkets.

It is an irony of gaming that the most beautifully-designed, magnificent areas of Foxwoods will never be seen by the people who visit it most frequently. These areas, with lustrous mahogany trim, decadent rugs, magnificent paintings and subdued lighting, belong to Foxwoods’ salon privŽ, accessible only to those who can afford the price of entry.

With its high limit areas active and the Grand Pequot Tower filled, Foxwoods and the Mashantucket Pequots are in the enviable position of sitting back, just for a moment, to decide their next direction of growth. Considering the numbers being generated in the casino, they really don’t have to do anything—but that would be foolish. So management has begun a year-long process of looking back, instead of forward. Back, that is, to the beginning, to the original casino areas, still crowded but cavernous and lifeless.

Starting with the first, and dullest, casino area, management will be redesigning the gaming areas, incorporating new design concepts, more change areas, better lighting and plenty of new machines, in all denominations. From the bingo parlor up to the Grand Pequot Tower, there will be plenty of interior reconstruction at Foxwoods this year—although the place is so large, few people will even realize that it’s happening.

The Mohegans have it better, and worse, than the Mashantucket Pequots, all because of timing. On the positive side, the Mohegans, who opened their Mohegan Sun Casino on October 12, 1996, were able to assess the mistakes Foxwoods made, and come up with a completely different and entirely competitive casino concept. The drawback is that Foxwoods still gets the lion’s share of publicity, relegating Mohegan Sun to something of an afterthought.

This is unfortunate because, quite simply, Mohegan Sun is one of the most stunning casinos ever built. Move it to the center of the Las Vegas Strip or the Atlantic City Boardwalk and it would easily be a smash hit. In these days of hyperactive casino themes, Mohegan Sun has managed to develop a cohesive, attractive concept, that never detracts from the action at hand—namely, gambling.

The casino is built in the round, roughly separated into four quadrants, each with its own entrance and seasonal theme (winter, spring, summer and fall). Clearly, the artwork and faux architecture all celebrate Mohegan tribal beliefs and culture, particularly the tribal reliance upon, and reverence for, nature.

The lighting, in particular, is sublime throughout the casino. Nowhere do guests see exposed lights; all fixtures are recessed or employ filters to soften the glow. This treatment emphasizes the jewel tones used to dazzling effect throughout the property, and in its three small but outstandingly-designed high-end restaurants (in the usual casino flavors of Italian, Chinese and Steakhouse; there’s also a buffet, coffee shop, deli and food court).

The casino itself, the fourth largest in the country and somehow considered "small" by Foxwoods players, is 150,000 sq. ft., with 3,000 slot machines and 180 table games. Those 3,000 machines are pretty cutting edge, too. Banks of Williams and Aristocrat machines were clearly visible in many sections of the casino. Like Foxwoods, the table games aren’t terribly competitive, but this is a slot player’s market.

While both properties offer headliner entertainment in a variety of categories, Mohegan Sun has actually placed its high-tech showroom, the Wolf’s Den, in the center of the casino, where anyone can see the performance. This innovation is terrific if you can’t get a seat in the Den, or just don’t want to leave your slot machine. Detractors say the casino gets too noisy when rock bands play, but with 150,000 sq. ft. of gaming space at their disposal, they can easily move to another section of the casino.

Without a hotel, Mohegan has had to come up with amenities to keep its players happy. Slot players are catered to in some remarkably attractive parlors, most of which feel more like living rooms than slot lounges. Management understands that these lounges are crucial to player comfort, especially considering the lack of other amenities. Of course, high-end players can ask about room comps at nearby hotels and inns. The Mohegan Sun may be without its own hotel tower, but it knows where to place its guests.

But that too will change in the not-so-distant future, as the Mohegans prepare to break ground on an exciting new tower project that will not only give it desperately-needed hotel rooms, suites and associated amenities, but will actually double the size of the casino to nearly 300,000 sq. ft.—basically equivalent to Foxwoods.

To give a sense of perspective, if all the casinos in Atlantic City were merged together, the total amount of casino square footage would be just over 1,000,000 sq. ft. In contrast, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun will have a combined casino square footage of 600,000 sq. ft. after Mohegan’s expansion. In Vegas terms, that’s about six times larger than The Mirage.

The future is bright up here in Connecticut’s Indian Country. Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, two of the country’s most unique, unlikely success stories, are doing well. So well, in fact, that expansion and renovation are done not so much out of necessity, but because it’s what the customers want. They may not be typical casinos, but they certainly understand their players. And as any casino worth its slot machines will tell you, nothing is more important than customer service.