Pequot Indians Strike It Rich in Their Casino

Gamblers abandon their cars by the side of the road and trudge miles, only to line up for a number and wait hours to play poker, baccarat and blackjack. Dealers are working 60 to 70 hours a week.

Like an irresistible magnet, the casino run by the Mashantucket Pequot Indians has attracted nearly 450,000 gamblers and gawkers from across the Northeast since it opened Feb. 15.

“I’ve got a full-time day job as a secretary and thought I’d just be working 25 or 30 hours a week here,” a weary dealer said as she dealt seven-card stud to eight players around a green-felt table. “This is more than I bargained for.”

Foxwoods High Stakes Bingo & Casino, which is longer than a football field and has 175 tables, offers the only legal high-stakes poker east of the Mississippi River. And that includes Atlantic City.

Kathy Wilson, who was keeping the waiting list for poker tables on a recent night, said the wait for a seat at the 35 tables was two to three hours.

“It can get up to five and six hours on weekends,” Wilson said. “If you walk in here at 3 a.m., you still have to wait to play poker.”

Alfred Luciani, the casino manager, said the average daily attendance of 15,000 is 20% more than projected. He has hired 200 more dealers to accommodate the crush and moved up expansion plans.

Weekends are so busy that gamblers are unable to get into the parking lot. Many abandon their cars in Ledyard, a sleepy rural town of 15,000, then walk two and three miles to place bets.

“We’re not towing the cars in, because there’s so many of them, and because there’s just no place for these people to park,” said State Trooper Daryl Martin, one of six troopers assigned to casino traffic control on weekends.

But the crime wave predicted by Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., who vehemently opposed the casino, hasn’t occurred, say Martin and Detective Jerry Boyle, a supervisor in the state police casino gambling unit.

“We haven’t had any serious crimes since the casino opened,” Boyle said. “Frankly, the most common complaint I’ve heard is from people who can’t get a seat at the tables.”

The casino opened after a lengthy court battle that confirmed Indians can offer high-stakes versions of any gambling game that is legal in a state, including the Las Vegas-style charity nights allowed in Connecticut.

Employing 2,500 people, it is one of the few rays of hope in a region facing the loss of 21,000 jobs at a General Dynamics Corp. submarine plant in nearby Groton if the Seawolf submarine program is eliminated.

But not everyone is pleased. Annie Bardwell, who lives two miles from the casino, said the constant traffic past her farmhouse, built by an ancestor in 1814, is unnerving.

“I’m thinking of either moving or having my house moved back up into the woods, away from the highway,” she said.