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http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-foxgame.artjul26,0,807274.story?&track=rss
Foxwoods Resort Casino will restart its computer-assisted PlayAway gambling game next week, setting up a clash with the state of Connecticut over the expansion of Indian gaming across the state.
The conflict could be worth the gamble for Foxwoods, already the world’s largest casino. Internet-based gambling, though illegal in the United States, is booming, fueled largely by online sports betting and online poker based in other countries. Traditional casinos have been struggling to figure out how to capture this explosive new market, which may be worth more than $12 billion worldwide, in a legal way.
“The game clearly seems to promote gambling more widely off the reservation,” said Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. “They have started an online, off-reservation gambling activity. It is illegal.”
Foxwoods temporarily shut the game down Friday, under pressure from both Blumenthal and the Division of Special Revenue, which regulates gambling in Connecticut. Federal and state law prohibit Internet gambling. In Connecticut, new casino games must be approved by the state.
To Foxwoods officials, PlayAway is merely a modification of the keno game played widely at casinos. In this latest variation, players purchase game tickets and then, using a home computer, log on to the Foxwoods website and see if they have won.
Last week, the Foxwoods site advertised the game as “our exclusive new way to play slots, card games and your other favorite games anytime you choose, anywhere there’s a computer!”
What upsets state regulators is this use of casino games, such as a slot machine and blackjack, to simulate a gambling experience.
“Patrons are led to believe that what they do on the Internet affects whether or not they win or lose,” wrote Paul A. Young, executive director of the Division of Special Revenue, in a recent letter to George Henningsen, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Gaming Commission, and Foxwoods CEO William Sherlock. “You were not forthcoming with information regarding this game.”
Jackson T. King, general counsel for the tribe, said the game is similar to a scratch-off lottery ticket in that the gambler is not actually “playing” a game but merely seeing if the ticket is a winner or not. It is not as if the player is actually playing a slot machine game or poker over the Internet, he said
“The game is keno. The evidence is pretty clear that all of the gaming transaction occurs at the reservation,” King said.
Foxwoods suspended the game last Friday after Special Revenue ordered a halt to the game because it was not reviewed and approved by the agency, as is required under the agreement allowing tribal casinos in the state.
King said Monday that Foxwoods has no plans to submit the game for formal review and approval, although casino officials and state regulators will meet today to discuss the matter.
“If the state wants to know more about it, we will work with them,” King said. “We sent them the data to satisfy that the game is keno.”
Blumenthal said Foxwoods has ignored laws and regulations in an effort to jump into the lucrative Internet gambling market. One research firm, the Maine-based Christiansen Capital Advisors, estimates that online gambling in the United States is now a $6 billion business that will grow to more than $9 billion by 2010. Because online gambling such as poker violates federal law, websites operate offshore.
“We feel that this whole situation is unfortunate,” said Paul Bernstein, a spokesman for the Division of Special Revenue, which last year took in more than $400 million in slot machine revenues from the two casinos. “The bottom line is that a cease and desist order has been issued. It needs to be followed.”
Foxwoods is required to submit any new game to the state for review, Bernstein said, a routine procedure that allows the state to take a close look at new games.
“We didn’t have an opportunity to do those things. What we are asking for is an opportunity to do what we have always been able to do,” Bernstein said.
A discussion of this story with Courant Staff Writer Rick Green is scheduled to be shown on New England Cable News each hour today between 9 a.m. and noon.
