Mohegan question

[seeker]

At the time, the dealers at Foxwoods were saying the MS poker room closed because of illegal activity involving the high rollers in the poker room. The story said that they closed the room in order to avoid prosecution in a deal with law enforcement officials. I have heard since that they are still obligated to keep the room shut. I have no idea how much of that is true.

[AKQJ10]

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Translation:

They think there's tons more money to be made catering to chain-smoking middle aged women chained to video poker machines than there is listening to 19-year-olds with fake ids complaining about the $10/hour time charges.

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Per square meter they're probably right -- slots and video games are 100% automated and basically just require labor to sell the quarters and to take the quarters out of the machines.

However, it's not an either-or proposition. Both nations have plenty of land on their reservations to cater to all the slot players AND have a poker room. Since one doesn't rule out the other, the real business question is, "Does a poker room have a positive net present value?", not, "Does a poker room have a higher NPV than any other gaming use?" Besides, there's a certain advantage to having both (as was pointed out to me): couples who might otherwise stay home can have one member go play the slots all day while the other plays poker.

So I find it hard to believe that a well-managed casino couldn't make money in a poker room, and it would be absurd for Mohegan to cede 100% of the market in New England (and half of that in NYC) to their competitor. Something's fishy with that explanation.