Mashantucket Pequots Hit The Jackpot With Bingo 25 Years Ago

Richard Petersen of Milford, MA, is a winner, plain and simple, at least according to Foxwoods Vice President Michael Holder at Foxwoods 25th anniversary of high stakes bingo earlier this week at the casino.  

"He's the luckiest man I know," said Holder. "He wins everything." 

Petersen, who has been playing bingo at Foxwoods since its opening day on Sunday, July 6, 1986, said the secret to winning is devotion, dedication, and perseverance. 

"I have never missed a Firecracker Bingo," said Petersen, of the Fourth of July event at Foxwoods with a $1 million payout. "I play three to four days a week and every weekend, too." 

It didn't start with million-dollar payouts, though.

"I watched this place built from Day One," said Petersen, who saw the groundbreaking on the hotels and casino through the years and described the original bingo hall as  "a very little non-smoking room." 

"It was a very small hall, we used to wait outside in the rain and the snow to come in," said Petersen of the first bingo hall built in 1986. "There was no place to wait, it had a little parking lot out there in the front." 

Wednesday's anniversary party featured a big cake and a raffle for audience members and brought together Foxwoods executives, floor workers and long-time patrons to celebrate the impact the original bingo hall had on the community. 

Foxwoods President and CEO Scott Butera called the bingo hall a "birth engine" for all that exists now, citing the 5-million-square-foot resort and gaming facility. 

Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation Chairman Rodney Butler said, "it has been an amazing journey" to start with a bingo hall that employed about 40 people and generated about $3 million in revenue to what now employs more than 10,000 people and generates more than $1 billion. 

The hall opened with 1,200 seats and has expanded to fit 3,500.  

"We've brought in a lot of new people and we're undergoing a tremendous effort to restore Foxwoods to being the finest gaming facility," said Senior Vice President Todd Greenberg to the crowd gathered. "We're going to improve operations across the board and give you guys a lot more reasons to come here." 

"I won my first car there in 1988 in the old bingo hall. A Toyota, one of those little throw-away cars – it was only worth about $8,000," said Petersen, who won another Toyota in the 1990s. 

Foxwoods gave a 2011 Chevrolet Corvette to a lucky winner at this year's Firecracker Bingo.

"My God, where can you go and win a million bucks playing bingo?" said Greenberg. "Where can you have a Corvette convertible be second prize, that's pretty darn good."