The Tribal Vegas Gamble Is Paying Off Big-Time For Connecticut’s Resourceful Pequots

In the early 1980s, a few Indians living in ramshackle trailers in a rocky forest eked out an existence selling firewood and maple syrup.

Today, they’re business tycoons.

Awash in cash from the vast Foxwoods casino, the tribe is thriving in the world of high finance, snapping up scores of properties in Connecticut and Rhode Island, opening its own shipbuilding business and hobnobbing with politicians, including President Clinton.

With the casino making over $1 million a day even during slow periods, the Mashantucket Pequots are using their economic muscle to reach well beyond their 1,238-acre reservation in southeastern Connecticut to create a major tourist center.

Some communities are resentful, fearing their slower pace of life may already have been lost. Others are delighted.

In the nearby city of Norwich, the 500-member tribe owns a posh French country-style inn where celebrity guests and high rollers can go for mud baths. It runs its own mail-order pharmaceutical business. It has begun building high-speed ferries along Connecticut’s Thames River, the first one a $11.5 million, three-hulled boat it will soon use to carry gamblers from New York City.

And after struggling to get tee times for its guests, the Pequots last month found the perfect solution: The tribe bought a half-interest in two golf courses less than 20 miles away in Rhode Island.

When the tribe’s Foxwoods Resort Casino opened in 1992, members prayed they would be able to turn a profit. Now, many have vacation homes and can afford to fly around the world on a moment’s notice. Tribal leader Richard A. Haywood even earned a place on Clinton’s donor call list in 1994.

“I think this measure of success has been a surprise to them,” said tribal spokesman Michael E. Dutton. “Now they see a need to diversify.”

With more than 2.5 million square feet of space, including 5,540 slot machines, Foxwoods is the biggest casino in the Western Hemisphere, drawing 55,000 visitors a day on average, casino spokesmen say.

Though the tribe will not divulge its profits, it does report its slot machine take to the state, which keeps 25 percent under an agreement struck in 1993. With slot revenues topping $2 billion since then, the state’s share has exceeded $550 million.

The tribe is now building a $350 million, 812-room hotel and conference center, the third hotel on its property. It also bought a Hilton Hotel in a neighboring town. A $135 million museum and research center is nearing completion.

Foxwoods was New England’s only casino until last fall, when a neighboring tribe opened one 10 miles away. So far, the biggest effect has been to stimulate the appetite for gambling in Connecticut.

But in a warning to the tribe that it may have to slow down, Standard & Poor’s this fall lowered the Pequots’ bond rating to just one level above junk bond status, which will mean higher costs for borrowing.

The tribe’s ambitions hit a snag in neighboring North Stonington, where it bought 600 acres of prime land along Interstate 95 with an eye toward leasing it to Six Flags for a major theme park.

A community group calling itself “This Is Not a Done Deal” rose up to fight the plan, and Six Flags has pulled out, at least for now.

“To plunk this thing down in the middle of our countryside, I think would be a travesty,” said Kathrine Bishop, leader of the group in North Stonington, an agricultural town of 5,000.

The tribe, meanwhile, has lined up a possible alternative site; it bought a large parcel of land across the border in Hopkinton, R.I.

The tribe has received a warm welcome in Norwich, a city of 35,000 where it has begun restoring five dilapidated buildings in the heart of downtown to create a retail, office and condominium complex.

City Manager William Tallman said the city is undergoing a renaissance as a result of Pequot investments and the jobs and business generated by Foxwoods, whose 11,000 jobs have helped offset the shrinking of the region’s defense industry.

“The spirit, the attitude, people feel better about themselves,” Tallman said.

The Pequots, meanwhile, are already looking to their next ventures.

Among the projects under consideration: a magnetic levitation railway to serve Foxwoods patrons, and a temperature-controlled island resort under glass located in what is now a parking lot.

“There’s no reason why that can’t happen,” said Foxwoods’ new chief executive, Bud Celey. “The planning for that is already started.”