Connecticut

Forbes: There's hope for Mashantucket Tribe's casino debt

Friday, March 16, 2012

"The New York Times Magazine’s cover story this week is a trenchant summation of the state of North America’s largest casino — the Foxwoods Resort Casino, owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, in Connecticut – and of the gambling business more generally. Foxwoods is the benchmark for an industry in flux. As reporter Michael Sokolove puts it:

The casino is underwater, like a five-bedroom Spanish colonial in a Nevada subdivision. The Pequots misjudged the market, borrowed too much and expanded unwisely. Foxwoods’s debt is on a scale befitting the size of the property — $2.3 billion.

Sokolove spent a lot of time with Scott Butera, Foxwood’s chief executive and a turnaround specialist known around these parts for his work with Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts and Tropicana Entertainment under Carl Icahn. Butera resigned from Tropicana on Dec. 31, 2010, to head Foxwoods – making him the tribal gaming entity’s seventh chief executive since 2007."

Get the Story:
John Bringardner: As Foxwoods fights for its life, tribal gaming restructurings provide hope (Forbes.Com 3/15)