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Connecticut Casinos Cash in on Asian Gamblers



Printer Friendly VersionPost a CommentTell a Friend about this Article22 October 2002
If the Mohegan Sun allowed its bright rugs to show the slightest sign of wear, the path between the bus lobby and the Pai Gow poker tables in the Casino of the Earth would be shredded.

Twenty-three buses carrying the Mohegan Sun logo and the casino's name in Chinese symbols arrive daily from New York and Boston's Chinatown sections. At Foxwoods Resort Casino, the number of buses runs as high as 30.

To the casinos, customers of Asian descent are as valuable as the 24-carat gold jewelry that is sold by the gram on Canal Street in New York's Chinatown.

"The Asian business is great business" Steve Karoul, vice president of casino marketing at Foxwoods Resort Casino, told a group of casino executives at a recent seminar in Las Vegas on the Asian gambler.

Why is it that the casinos covet Asian customers and cater to them? Simple. Many can be counted on to risk tens of thousands of dollars a year on games of chance.

The casinos have many patrons of Asian descent, including Chinese Americans, Cambodians, Japanese, Koreans, Malaysians, Mong, Thai and Vietnamese. Mohegan Sun estimates Asians comprise about 10 percent of the customer base. Foxwoods could not provide a specific number, but Karoul thinks the casino has the highest percentage of Asian business of any single casino in the United States. With as many as 50,000 people visiting the two casinos each day, the number of Asian customers likely tops 5,000 a day.

With those numbers have come great profits for the casinos, but also crime and addiction problems.

The State Police Casino & Licensing Unit has made several loan-sharking arrests involving Asians and is watching for potential money laundering activity. Troopers say there are some indications that corrupt officials in Asian countries might be embezzling money and then providing funds to the loan sharks here as a way of obliterating the incriminating paper trail. So far there is no evidence to indicate that Asian triads, or street gangs, have set up shop in Connecticut's casinos, according to top officers in unit.

As with gamblers of any ethnicity, some Asians are gambling their way into trouble. Counselors know families who have lost their homes and businesses due to their gambling debts. They tell of husbands who don't come home after work, then show up later to confess they had lost their entire paycheck at the casino.

Unlike others who find themselves over their heads, however, Asians don't tend to seek help.

"In terms of them coming in for treatment, they don't," said Chris Armentano of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health & Addiction.

Frustrated counselors say their clients' distrust of authority coupled with the fact that Gamblers' Anonymous isn't offered in Asian languages in Connecticut prevents them from doing much to help.

The Asian affinity for games of chance is well known.

Families play ancient games such as Mah Jong, a tile game, for low stakes. Luck and chance are daily conversation topics and people like to make bets on almost anything.

The state's two casinos cash in on this by offering Asians their favorite games, food and entertainment. They hire Asian employees to communicate with their customers, who speak a dizzying number of languages and dialects, and print signs and other publications in Asian languages. They take pains to honor cultural preferences and superstitions. Mohegan Sun, for example, omitted the 14th floor from its hotel tower in addition to the usual 13th floor omission, since 14 is an unlucky number for Asians.

On traditional American holidays such as Thanksgiving and uniquely Asian holidays like the Chinese New Year, the number of Asian players soars as the casinos kick up their targeted marketing.

But the simple explanation of it's part of the culture oversimplifies the motives of why Asian-Americans gamble, according to counselors.

Back in Vietnam, where there were no casinos, people would bet on dog or chicken races, said Nguyen, the social worker. Some would get addicted, but games were mainly a part of large gatherings of families and friends

Gambling problems are just one of the issues Theanvy Kuoch, executive director of the Hartford-based Khmer Health Advocates, hears about from her clients, who are survivors of the Khmer Rouge's brutal reign of terror.

Going to the casino, she said, is a way for them to escape their problems and feel in control. Sometimes whole families go to the casino together, with the grandmother watching over the children while the parents play.

Asian gamblers have more to lose in the United States, which is a cash economy, than they did in their countries of origin, where property, livestock and other possessions define wealth

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