Coronavirus silences slots at Foxwoods

MASHNANTUCKET — The only man at the last bar open at Foxwood Resorts Casino sipped bottled water and played Keno on a video screen embedded in the bar top. His name was George Duggan, and he came to witness a moment.

After 28 years and one month of non-stop gambling, defying blizzards and hurricanes, through bull and bear markets, the shock of Sept. 11, 2001, and the election of four presidents, Foxwoods was about to pause.

The tiniest and strongest of disrupters, the COVID-19 coronavirus, had done the impossible. It breached the bubble that keeps a casino a world unto itself, a place without clocks or windows, where the music never stops and the lights never dim.

Not until Tuesday night. “It’s historic is what it is,” Duggan said. “It’s sad history, but it’s history.”

Five televisions loomed over the bar. On the left, ESPN showed the Big 12 Championship Game from another decade, the only sports available in the age of coronavirus. Texas led Kansas, 32-10, but anyone with Google could predict that a rally would give the game to Kansas. It was a replay from March 11, 2007.

The next TV broadcasts news from March 17, 2020. CNN’s headline: U.S. CORONAVIRUS DEATH TOLL REACHES 100; 5,500+ CASES.

The official Foxwoods closing was 8 p.m., but life had been slowly bleeding out of the sprawling complex for days, even before the tribal owners, the Mashantucket

Pequots, agreed to follow the rules set for the world off the reservation, and close its doors.

The Mohegan tribe was doing the same on the other side of the Thames River, closing the Mohegan Sun for the first time since it opened in 1994. Duggan said he heard Mohegan was empty by 5 p.m., but there still were stragglers at Foxwoods at 7 p.m.

The tribes agreed Monday night to a two-week respite, but no one really thinks the COVID-19 pandemic will slide by in two weeks just because the lights are off, the slots are quiet and the parking garages empty. The virus is here in eastern Connecticut, even without a confirmed case.

Rodney Butler said he believes that. He is the Pequots’ tribal chairman, the man who initially hoped that social distancing might work in a casino. Foxwoods disabled every other video slot machine. It closed the poker room and limited players at the tables. Mohegan took similar measures.

The sanitizing wipes in the stainless steel stands arrived a week and half ago, letting patrons wipe down their favorite slot machines. Pump bottles of sanitizer sat at every table where gamblers bet of roulette, craps, baccarat and blackjack.

On Saturday, the giant bingo hall closed, along with the adjacent buffet.

“Because of the demographic of that player, we felt it was a nobrainer,” said Wayne Theiss, the vice president of gaming operations.

Bingo skews old. So does COVID-19.

Theiss came from Atlantic City to work the opening in February of 1992, and he never left. He was there when management abandoned the original plan to close the tables at 2 a.m.

“They were seven deep,” Theiss said.

Butler bumped into Theiss and Jacqueline Mason, another executive, near the Grand Pequot, the only gambling floor still open. All three acknowledged being deeply disoriented by the empty tables, empty slots, empty bars. “Weird,” Theiss said. “Scary weird,” Mason corrected.

Butler continued his walk around the complex. When he reached the long corridor approaching the Rainmaker Casino, the original gaming floor, he stopped, reached for his phone and took a picture. The corridor was empty.

“I’ve never seen that in my life,” he said.