Food & Folks at The Mohegan Sun

By George Davis - "I expect to make about $1,500 each time I come. Sometimes a little less, sometimes more."

I was listening to a self proclaimed professional gambler while waiting for The Mohegan Sun hotel shuttle to gather us up from the bus drop-off. We'd been inhaling diesel fumes from the idling buses for nearly half an hour as busload after busload disgorged excited gamblers. Three times we'd summoned the shuttle from the courtesy telephone; three times we were assured that the shuttle was on its way. But we were still waiting.

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"Of course, if I get into a losing streak, I stop," the gambler continued. "I eat dinner or go to bed. You've got to break the streak. Then I try again later."

This former engineer immigrated from Haiti almost two decades ago. After working in the construction industry in New York City for a dozen years he discovered Blackjack. After a couple of years' winning streak, he decided to give up engineering and become a professional gambler. He works one day (and a night) per week, alternates casinos to keep things fresh and interesting (or perhaps to diminish the chances of overextending his welcome at any one casino) and earns more than he did as an engineer. Now he's writing a book on gambling for profit.

At last the hotel shuttle rescued me from the bus depot, and whether from diesel exhaust poisoning or from the gambler's American Dream memoir recounted with such charm and eloquence, I was beginning to feel slightly drugged.

I'd ridden Metro-North from Grand Central Station in Manhattan to the New Haven train station where I transferred with three other passengers to the Mohegan Sun bus which transported us the final hour to The Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut where I was scheduled to attend a marine trade show.

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My senses always awaken during an exodus out of the Big Apple, increasingly alert and perceptive as the concrete and populus extremus give way to forests and fields and grazing deer. Okay, so suburban New York and Connecticut aren't exactly bucolic, but my eyes were swallowing up the "movie" playing past my train and bus windows, and my ears exercised their rights to eavesdrop as well.

Of note, a running, familiar conversation between the Mohegan Sun bus driver and a lady sitting at the front of the bus. The passenger was a gregarious African American woman in her early to mid seventies, bundled up in a well worn wool coat and black beret pulled down over her ears. When I boarded the bus, she'd asked me if I "felt lucky today" and proceeded to explain that the power of positive thinking is vital to gambling success. I skipped explaining that I was attending a marine trade show at The Mohegan Sun convention center and was not likely to gamble. I was interested in hearing her story.

During the bus ride, I heard plenty as she and the friendly, young bus driver caught up. Turns out the passenger had been ill for some time and unable to get out to the casino, so they had plenty to chat about. Apparently she was quite a regular, familiar not only with our present bus driver but all of the others whom she asked after by name.

A single, elderly lady who lives in a boarding house in New York City and husbands her resources for escapes to The Mohegan Sun. Perhaps a somewhat lonely sounding character. But her exuberance suggested otherwise. And by the time we pulled into the bus depot at the casino, she and the driver had made plans to head down to Atlantic City in the spring for an all girls gambling weekend. Before taking leave, the bus driver told her about her recent run of luck at the slot machines, and her wisdom to cash in when she was $400 ahead and head straight off to Walmart to spend it!

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