All bets are off: Mohegan Sun shuts down its poker room

9-3-03

UNCASVILLE, Conn.

motions are getting the better of some poker faces, as longtime players at Mohegan Sun casino mourn the folding of its poker room.

Beginning today, the room will be used to house more slot machines.

For regular players, many of whom have been playing in the poker room since the casino opened in 1996, the closing seems like a death in the family.

“The tribe, we feel, is being disloyal to their patrons of seven years,” Arlene Olderman, a poker regular, said. “I understand the bottom line is making money. However, one of their values is to be customer-friendly. This doesn’t seem customer-friendly.”

Nancy Garber of Boston, who plays the Texas Hold ’Em variety of poker, said she was so upset when a poker room employee called to tell her the room was closing that others became concerned.

“People said, ‘You’re acting like someone died,’” Garber said.

Some regulars asked the Tribal Gaming Commission and tribal leaders to keep the poker room open, to no avail.

“If and when we do a phase three, there’s a possibility that we’ll add poker back into the mix,” Mohegan Tribal Chairman Mark F. Brown said.

The casino planned to seat poker players yesterday until midnight and remain open for those players until they were finished.

The 200 people who worked in the poker room have been reassigned to other areas of the casino.

Some dealers have left Mohegan Sun to work at Foxwoods Resort Casino, which is keeping its poker room open.