Archive

Archive for the ‘Connecticut’ Category

Hal’s trip to CT casinos

January 21st, 2008 bumpkin 25 comments

A meeting of the ……. minds
There is an interesting article on casino-friend by pro-casino luminary Hal Brown about his first-ever trip to a casino when he visited Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun recently.

I’m going to break with my tradition of never linking to his site due to what I perceive as accusations of racism against CasinoFacts.org. I’ve moved on somewhat and in fact Hal and I had a very special moment in the shower at the YMCA recently – proving conclusively that anti-casino people and pro-casino people can coexist and can even engage in polite discourse …. especially when they’re both buck naked. Not since “Psycho” has there been a more horrifying shower scene – but in the end we both had a good laugh about it and perhaps made some progress moving past the casino issue or at least putting it into its proper perspective along with everything else going on in town. But I digress.

CT casinos according to Hal
I’ll give Hal credit for admitting that eyebrows will be raised by his staunch support for the casino and the fact that he has never gone to one before now. The article is generally negative on the casinos and ends with a hope that somehow our casino will be different. I’ll include a few quotes and advise you to read the article for yourself.

The most striking thing to me was how few of the customers seemed to be having fun.

Individuals gambling alone seemed to be in worlds of their own, oblivious to anything going on around them. I never saw any of them smile, even when they won.

The slot machine players stared at the machines without a glimmer of reaction when they got a small win, which would happen every five or ten times they played. I never saw anyone win big.

I didn’t often see players relating to other players even though they were sitting or standing right next to them.

Older couples were a mixed group, it seemed the older they were the more detached from each other and the more serious. I saw few smiles among them.

My overall impression of both casinos is that they were sad places where every effort had been made to create the illusion of happiness.

While the Mohegan Sun hotel would probably be acceptable to anyone who likes contemporary architecture, even though they might object to having it dominate a rural skyline, the parking garage and casino buildings are, to put it bluntly, ugly.

I haven’t yet visited the towns surrounding either casino. Short of interviewing many people I doubt I would learn much as to how the towns were effected by the casinos. I have no plans to do this. I’ll rely on the reports from those who have already done so.

I haven’t changed my opinion that while there are pros and cons of having a large resort casino in Middleboro, the pros outweigh the cons.

Having seen all the solitary gamblers yesterday, I believe many of them are lonely and some may be staving off clinical depression through gambling in a setting astutely designed to create the illusion of fun, good times and happiness.

I believe they should be afforded this opportunity and shouldn’t have to travel to Connecticut to do so.

There is more to the article including pictures, a section titled “Lessons for Middleboro” and Hal’s conclusions.

Surprise – I disagree
As stated, I’ll give Hal some credit for putting this out there and exposing himself to criticism. I couldn’t disagree more with him on this – no surprise there. I think the cons outweigh the pros by a long shot. I find the idea of elderly people using a casino as a social activity to stave off loneliness or depression to be completely abhorrent. There are others besides Hal that count this as one of the benefits of a casino – the whole idea leaves me completely flummoxed.

But Hal – let’s take this up during our next shower and show these Pro/Con people how grown-ups separate politics from people.

PDF Creator    Send article as PDF to
Categories: Connecticut, Hal Brown, casino Tags: