Where to gamble in New England

The lights flash and the slots pay off... sometimes

By David Maloof, Globe Correspondent, 01/05/03

		More on New England  N.E.'s own Vegas  The Mohegan Sun also rises
		Printable version What to do Hinsdale Greyhound Park & OTB 688 Brattleboro Road, Hinsdale, N.H. 800-648-7225 or 603-336-5382 www.hinsdalegreyhound.com Open Wednesday through Sunday, 1 p.m. until 4:30 or 5 p.m. (as long as it takes to run 15 races); on Saturdays, another 15 races run from 8 to about 1 or 1:30 p.m. Other tracks www.trackinfo.com/pl/pl-otbs.htm Lincoln Greyhound Park Lincoln, R.I. 401-723-3200 Bradley Teletheater Windsor Locks, Conn. 860-292-5201 St. Stanislaus School 534 Front St. Chicopee 413-592-5135 Bingo games begin at 6:30 p.m. Fridays. Mohegan Sun 1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard (Route 2A — exit 79A off I-395) Uncasville, Conn. 888-226-7711 www.mohegansun.com Devotees call it the Vegas of the East. Where to stay Mohegan Sun 860-862-7599 www.mohegansun.com Rates range from $150 to $275 weekdays, $250 to $375 weekends, based partly on "supply and demand" (yet another gamble). Best Western Inn 2255 Norwich New London Turnpike Montville, Conn. 860-848-0660 Rooms $99 to $165; limousine service to and from casino. Ramada Inn 10 Laura Boulevard Norwich, Conn. 860-889-5201 Rooms $79 to $165; shuttle service to and from casino. Spring Hill Suites by Marriott 401 N. Frontage Rd. Waterford, Conn. 860-439-0151 Rooms $89 to $129; shuttle service to and from casino.

To a virtual non-gambler, a gambling trip sounds like a sure thing, in terms of novelty.

But it also confronts the fact that all travel is a bit of a gamble: on the accommodations, the food, the weather, the people, even the potential life-and-death of getting into a car, a plane, a boat, a train.

If Massachusetts gives in to fiscal pressures and approves proposals to legalize casino gambling, I may one day be able to engage in three types of gambling in my home state. In the meantime, I figure, now is as good a time as any to try my hand.

I decide to (1) pay all my family's outstanding bills, and (2) head to a dog track/off-track betting emporium in New Hampshire, a church bingo game in Massachusetts, and a Connecticut casino. I would end my journey when I ran out of time, money, and/or nerve.

Bring on the dogs — or not. For well before I pull into the snow-coated parking lot of the Hinsdale Greyhound Park & OTB, I've decided that I'll bet on the off-track ponies, but — in deference to tales of greyhound abuse — not on the local canines.

But the gambling air eventually will wash over me, though not as immediately as does the scrim of cigarette and cigar smoke in a place where men outnumber women at least 30 to 1, and attire is casual at best. The floor is littered with that race track cliche, discarded betting slips, and I count 76 television monitors in the adjacent "club" and 83 throughout the long grandstand room. One old guy tells another, "I'm getting scared. When you get scared, you can't gamble," then walks away.

From across the room comes an "Eee yi yi yi yi!" and "What's happenin' he-ah?"

That's exactly what I was asking myself. Novelty and gambling require ignorance, though probably not as much as I offer. I am the luggage-less traveler, clueless to language and customs.

And so as I glance through a racing program, I seek the familiar. The greyhounds' names (Nitro Night, Solid Fire) apparently come from the same random-naming facility as the AOL trial passwords we get in the mail, and in a pre-race parade of dogs (led by parka-garbed handlers) I see on one dog the same pensive, distracted look that my college-professor neighbor often wears while driving.

Another competitor offers the hangdog countenance of a creature who has looked deep into a tunnel of ennui that offers not even a sliver of redemptive light. These are the two dogs on whom I've already decided to place a quinella bet (first two finishers, any order) because — get this — I "like their names." I haven't even bothered to rationalize my flip-flop on the issue of dog betting.

At the wagering window, a young blonde worker walks me through the process like a patient kindergarten teacher. "Some [bettors] are worse than you," she says kindly.

Each race lasts just over a half minute for the winner, longer for my two dogs: One fades to third, the other chugs through his tunnel of ennui to a distant last.

I feel bad for the dog, but the televisions offer sunny relief. I am drawn to Churchill Downs, home to the Kentucky Derby, and based on a TV handicapper's tip, I bet $5 each on horses 1 and 3 to win (even though yes, I know, only one could pay off).

Sitting at the bar, watching the Churchill Downs monitor, I clutch a clear-plastic cup of cheap, cold beer, and realize that one of the two great thrills of gambling is anticipating winning. The other: actually winning. I assume.

I soon hear myself muttering "Come on 3, come on 3!" and when horse #3 (I've never learned its name) wins I tell myself, "I won!" Then I notice the odds: a modest 3 to 1.

"You doubled your money," says my optimistic blonde financial adviser, handing me a worn $20 bill. "Now if I only could keep doing that," I say. Pause. "Nah," I decide. "Nah," she echoes as I head outside, pleased to have broken even at the track, but determined to do better for the day.

Everyone I had talked to assumed that I (or any gambler) could only lose money. At the track, sure. At bingo, probably. But not at a casino, playing blackjack, reputedly among the best-odds games around.

The casino awaits, two snowy states ahead, while I head down snow-slicked roads to bingo night at the St. Stanislaus School in Chicopee. At a red light in Holyoke, I feel the familiar movement of the earth sliding out of sync from my intentions. I curse, pump the brake, hold my breath. The car slides to a cockeyed stop. My luck has held, so far.

I had been told to arrive an hour early, which I have done, to be sure to get a seat. Yet after I pay $15 for 13 sheets of nine bingo "cards" and enter the hall, most of the places at the long tables are vacant, and will remain so. Surely the snowy weather is a factor. But according to a recent Gaming Magazine article, charitable bingo games such as this one have been losing players to the higher-stakes operations at the Connecticut casinos, annual Massachusetts attendance dropping from 10.4 million in 1984 to 3.7 million in 2001. One acquaintance of mine, a self-described "high-stakes bingo specialist," long ago abandoned local charitable games for Saturday forays to Foxwoods Casino.

After purchasing a bingo marker (it makes circles in colored ink) for 75 cents, I notice that the nonsmoking side of the hall is larger and emptier. Smokers, so used to risking their lives, must have fewer qualms about risking them again by driving on such a treacherous night.

The game is rapid and dull. I mark cards, and time. Here, my stranger-in-a-strange-land status is heightened. I'm solo, male, brimming with relative youth. They're grouped, mostly female, topped by hair of white or gray.

One little old lady wins. Then a different (I think) little old lady wins. A less old, less little lady wins. The game is mechanical, repetitive, predictable in routine, if not outcome. The caller's voice is resigned, almost morose. As I wonder how many people here come from assembly line jobs or lives, attracted to something familiar that dangles a greater payoff, I put on my jacket and escape this Godforsaken place for some relatively heathen rewards at Mohegan Sun.

Oh, how much simpler a gamble ramble would be if between every McDonald's and CVS in Massachusetts stood a neighborhood casino. Instead, approaching the Mohegan Sun complex feels like approaching an airport — the lighted overhead lane signs, the large and packed garage, the growing sense of uncertainty.

Inside, past 9 p.m., the kids in strollers (in the mall-like area outside the casinos) suggests that this is Mom and Dad's payback for that Disney World trip, and the United Nations mix of people makes this "airport" look international.

After eating a lame pulled pork sandwich in one of the "territory" restaurants, I meet up with my friend Brian. We want to start slowly, so we locate the only two $5 blackjack tables. We wait. Indeed, much of gambling involves waiting: for a seat at a table, for the race or game to begin, for one's luck to change. Then I sit, buy 12 $5 chips, and place one before me.

Compared with the stark ambience of the racetrack and bingo hall, the casino bursts with sights and sounds. Voices compete with the ding-ding of the slot machines, and considerable spending, if not thinking, has gone into designing and decorating the place. Yet I focus only on cards: mine and the dealer's. I don't recall that I'm in the "Casino of the Earth" (which is not to be confused with "Casino of the Sky," though of course they would probably lure as many people if they called it "Casino of the Sewage Treatment Plant").

When someone returns to the seat I am occupying — so that's what that clear chip on the table meant — I stand and count my chips: I'm up $55.

After more waiting, we try an $11 table offering "Blackjack Bonanza," in which you must place an extra $1 chip on each game and, almost invariably, lose it. (I decide that the $1 is a fee paid for the right to sit at a $10 table.) Here, we both sit and bet. Cards shoot out; each of us requests another with two taps on the table, or decline with a double backhand wave. I play simple: Never stand on 13 or below, think about it on 14 or 15, never hit on 17, and always trust something that I prefer to call "intuition" rather than "dumb luck." When we stand to take a breather, I'm up $91.

Inspired by images of "Casablanca," we seek out a roulette table. I expect a more dignified scene than I find: Bettors lurching over the table like half-drunken pool players, stacking chips on three, seven, 12 numbers at a time. No one bothers with the high-odds/low-payoff wagers (red or black, even or odd), and chips pile up like uncollected trash cans. These gamblers seem so purposeful: What do they know that I don't? Or is it that, as my bingo specialist acquaintance says, "There is a fine line between stupidity and personal pleasure"?

We can't find another low-roller table, and so around midnight Brian heads out, a two-hour drive ahead of him. But I still have some time, money, nerve, and — I convince myself — bets to win.

Emboldened by an iced coffee, I settle on a $25 blackjack table occupied by a red-haired female dealer and five 30-ish guys. First hand: I lose. Second hand: I lose again. That's 50 bucks. But I believe in the rhythms of blackjack. I win. I win again. I lose. I win. The guy to my left actually stands on 12 — and loses. I'm dealt a 5, then a queen. I tap the table twice.

It erupts. "What are you doing!" "You sure you want to do that?!" "No, no, no, no, no!" Apparently I've missed something as crucial as it is obvious, and it has something to do with whatever card the dealer is showing. (To this day, I can't remember what it was.) "No, no, no, you pull the ripcord before you hit the ground!" From my left, Mr. "Stand On 12" lectures me: "You never, never, hit on that!" Before he can give me a time-out at a slot machine, I put my hands up in the international "OK, you've made your annoying point!" signal. The dealer deals; I break. Heads shake.

I am stunned at their self-assurance. This is gambling. Nothing is certain. Isn't that the point?

So on the next deal, with two $25 chips and two cards totalling 15 before me and the dealer showing a 5, I stay. She climbs to 17; I fall again. "Followed your advice," I say to my left, although I'm not even sure what his advice actually was. On the next hand, I'm dealt a blackjack.

I win. I lose. I win. I want more money. Yet I'm still the guy who paid the bills before leaving home, the New Englander with a Puritan streak, if not soul.

I win. I stand, convinced that, should I stay at the table, I would experience the familiar movement of the (Casino of the) Earth sliding out of sync with my intentions. "When you get scared," a wise old man once said, "you can't gamble."

I cash out to the tune of $233.50. (Bring on the Bay State casinos! I'll take my own fiscal redemption over Massachusetts' any day.) Subtract the $60 I started with, and I've made $173.50. Subtract the $15 donated to the Roman Catholic Church, and I'm in the black for over 150 bucks — small change to the big shots who go through gambling chips like potato chips, but I've got a predictable life to get back to. And I want to be sure it's waiting for me when I get home.

David Maloof is a freelance writer who lives in Belchertown.