Poker News

The United States of Poker: Connecticut

There are only two casinos in all of Connecticut, both on reservations, and out of those two, only one has live poker - the Foxwoods Resort Casino. The other Connecticut casino, the Mohegan Sun, closed its poker room in 2003. It remains to be seen if the poker explosion will entice the Mohegan Sun to give poker another try.

The Foxwoods, known as the biggest casino in the world, is located on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation, one of the oldest, continually occupied Indian reservations in North America, according to foxwoods.com.

The Pequots have lived in Mashantucket for over 10,000 years, and at their peak they had about 8,000 members across 250 square miles. Today, thanks to several recent legal settlements involving illegal land sales by the state of Connecticut in 1856, and federal recognition granted in 1983, the Pequot reservation stands at 1,250 acres. As a result of these settlements, the Pequots were able to offer bingo in 1986, and the Foxwoods opened in 1992.

According to federal law, each casino can offer any game of chance legal under state law. When the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun opened, Connecticut had legal gambling for non-profit organizations during “Las Vegas Night” fundraisers. The two casinos were able to open while this law was on the books; it was later repealed in 2003.

“The poker room opened with the casino in February 1992 as a 24 hour, 7-daysa- week business,” says Terry Chiaradio, Foxwoods poker room shift manager.

The poker room has expanded several times since then. It now carries 76 tables, offering numerous varieties of poker with a huge variance in limits, all the way up to 75/150 stud, 150/300 round-by-round (HOE format, for Hold ‘em, Omaha and eight-or-better stud), and no-limit Hold’em.

The Foxwoods hosted the World Poker Finals, an event on the World Poker Tour, in October/November 2004, and the event aired this year. The WPT’s website reveals that 674 entrants paid $10,000 each to enter the tournament, for a total purse of $6,765,000 and a buy-in to the World Poker Championship. The WPT is hosting the same event this year, October 27 through November 18, for broadcast on the Travel Channel in 2006. There are plenty of satellite tournaments leading up to the big event, if the buy-in is too daunting a prospect.

More recently, the New England Poker Classic was held March 28 to April 11, highlighted by a $5,000 buy-in, four-day Hold’em event, with a prize pool of $1,955,000, according to pokerpages.com.

Poker action at the Foxwoods shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. “Since the Travel Channel aired the poker tournaments, business has increased substantially,” says Chioradio. “We have increased weekly tournaments, and as far as the guests, we have seen many new faces as well as more women who are playing poker. I think people are not as intimidated to come into the room, since they can watch the games on TV and understand how the games work in the casino.”

More and more young adults fascinated by poker are reaching legal gambling age and are taking that first step into a live poker room, fueling the poker surge beyond anyone’s expectations. “I think poker is here to stay,” says Chioradio. “I have a daughter, who is 9 years old, who begs me to teach her poker. Poker has been plasyed in basements for a long time and I think people are enjoying the whole atmosphere of the casino poker room.”

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