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The Connecticut-based Foxwoods Resort Casino has invested more than $1 million in renovations to ensure the safety of its customers as they return to the slot machines and craps tables after. How much anyone wins or loses on the slot machines depends in some part as to what actual machines that they play. For example the Mohegan Sun actually took in $53.5 million dollars in slot revenue just for one month in December 2010. This surprisingly was a 6% decline over the previous year according to sources.

The only man at the last bar open at Foxwood Resorts Casino sipped bottled water and played Keno on a video screen embedded in the bar top. His name was George Duggan, and he came to witness a moment.

After 28 years and one month of non-stop gambling, defying blizzards and hurricanes, through bull and bear markets, the shock of Sept. 11, 2001 and the election of four presidents, Foxwoods was about to pause.

The tiniest and strongest of disrupters, the COVID-19 coronavirus, had done the impossible. It breached the bubble that keeps a casino a world unto itself, a place without clocks or windows, where the music never stops and the lights never dim.

Not until Tuesday night.

“It’s historic is what it is,” Duggan said. “It’s sad history, but it’s history.”

Five televisions loomed over the bar. On the left, ESPN showed the Big 12 Championship Game from another decade, the only sports available in the age of coronavirus. Texas led Kansas, 32-10, but anyone with Google could predict that a rally would give the game to Kansas. It was a replay from March 11, 2007.

The next TV broadcasts news from March 17, 2020. CNN’s headline: U.S. CORONAVIRUS DEATH TOLL REACHES 100; 5,500+ CASES.

The official Foxwoods closing was 8 p.m., but life had been slowly bleeding out of the sprawling complex for days, even before the tribal owners, the Mashantucket Pequots, agreed to follow the rules set for the world off the reservation, and close its doors.

The Mohegan tribe was doing the same on the other side of the Thames River, closing the Mohegan Sun for the first time since it opened in 1994. Duggan said he heard Mohegan was empty by 5 p.m., but there still were stragglers at Foxwoods at 7 p.m.

The tribes agreed Monday night to a two-week respite, but no one really thinks the COVID-19 pandemic will slide by in two weeks just because the lights are off, the slots are quiet and the parking garages empty. The virus is here in eastern Connecticut, even without a confirmed case.

Rodney Butler said he believes that. He is the Pequots’ tribal chairman, the man who initially hoped that social distancing might work in a casino. Foxwoods disabled every other video slot machine. It closed the poker room and limited players at the tables. Mohegan took similar measures.

The sanitizing wipes in the stainless steel stands arrived a week and half ago, letting patrons wipe down their favorite slot machines. Pump bottles of sanitizer sat at every table where gamblers bet of roulette, craps, baccarat and blackjack.

On Saturday, the giant bingo hall closed, along with the adjacent buffet.

“Because of the demographic of that player, we felt it was a no-brainer,” said Wayne Theiss, the vice president of gaming operations.

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Bingo skews old. So does COVID-19.

Theiss came from Atlantic City to work the opening in February of 1992, and he never left. He was there when management abandoned the original plan to close the tables at 2 a.m.

“They were seven deep,” Theiss said.

Butler bumped into Theiss and Jacqueline Mason, another executive, near the Grand Pequot, the only gambling floor still open. All three acknowledged being deeply disoriented by the empty tables, empty slots, empty bars.

“Weird,” Theiss said.

“Scary weird,” Mason corrected.

Butler continued his walk around the complex. When he reached the long corridor approaching the Rainmaker Casino, the original gaming floor, he stopped, reached for his phone and took a picture. The corridor was empty.

“I’ve never seen that in my life,” he said.

Even at 4 a.m., when he used to make the slots drop early in his career, the corridor would be packed.

The sound system overhead played Donna Summer singing, “Last Dance.”

So let’s dance, the last dance/Let’s dance, the last dance/Let’s dance, this last dance tonight.

“Perfect,” he said. “The classic end of wedding song. Oh, man.”

Butler is unsure how long the Pequots can afford to keep Foxwoods closed. It costs about $10 million a week to keep the place going, he said. That includes payments on the casino’s $2 billion debt, the 25% percent share of the gross gaming revenue from slots it pays Connecticut, and a payroll with about 5,000 employees.

They defaulted on their debt in 2009, and it took five years to restructure.

The tribes had been talking to the Lamont administration about sports betting and online gambling before the pandemic.

“I know people don’t want to talk about expansion of gaming and all that stuff at this time,” Butler said. “But at some point we need to talk about what should we have done already and what can we do quickly moving it beyond this — and a great example is online gaming.”

The administration is willing to support the legalization of sports betting and cutting a deal with the tribes that would give them rights to a sports book at their casinos and a share of the online book statewide. The tribes want all forms of online gambling, including the ability to turn every smartphone, tablet and computer into a virtual casino. Lamont is opposed.

Butler said online gambling would be welcome right now. He also acknowledged this week is not the time for that conversation.

In the Grand Pequot Casino, an unhappy gambler named Jose Vasquez played on a Lord of the Rings slot machine. He complained that Foxwoods was not taking his drink order.

“Write that down,” he instructed a reporter.

Joanna Miklosz, who had been staying at Foxwoods since Sunday, arrived in a better mood to try slots, not her usual game. She comes to Foxwoods to play blackjack.

“But not today,” she said.

The dealers were gone. So were the bartenders.

Miklosz said she is worried about both. Bartenders, waitresses and dealers all make more money off tips than salary, and unemployment benefits do little for tipped workers unless they diligently report all tipped income, she said. Miklosz allowed that she is aware of some bartenders who do not follow that practice.

“I’m actually a bartender,” she said.

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Vasquez stopped briefly by a slots machine named Elvis. It promised “shakes, rattling, reels.”

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But not tonight. Its video screen was solid blue with a tiny message found on the machines already on their two-week break: “Out of service. Local disabled.”

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Elvis already had left the building.

When Connecticut's two casinos opened in the early 90s, they did so by reaching an agreement with the State of Connecticut to pay the state 25 percent of their monthly slot revenues.

As a result, both Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods must report their total slot earnings to the state each month. In December 2010, Foxwoods earned $45 million on its slot machines, an increase of 1.2 percent over December 2009.

Mohegan Sun took in $53.5 million dollars in December slot revenue. That's a 6 percent decline over December 2009, according to The Day of New London.

In reporting its numbers, Mohegan Sun actually revealed some interesting information some gamblers might want to pay attention to.

Overall in December, $673,412,991 went through Mohegan's slot machines. It's a staggering number, referred to as the handle, by casinos. But Mohegan Sun only kept 7.94 percent of that total amount. That means more than 92 percent went back to gamblers.

What may be even more valuable information to the millions of people who drop dollars into those ringing, buzzing and screeching machines is that Mohegan Sun also breaks down which machines actually give gamblers the best odds at winning.

The casino has 6,404 slot machines scattered throughout it's sprawling gaming floors, and as most gamblers know, you can toss your money into those machines in many different denominations. But what the casino's December numbers show is that some of the 'cheapest' slot machines, actually have the worst odds for patrons.

For example, Mohegan Sun kept 11 percent of all of the money that went into its penny slot machines, with 89 percent returned to the players. That must be why the casino has more penny slots, 2,532 machines, than any other type. Not surprisingly, the majority of Mohegan Sun's slot revenue comes from these penny slots. Nickel slot machines took 12 percent, and give back 88 percent in December.

On the other side of the scale, the casino's $2 slots kept just 2.03 percent of the money that went in, giving back just under 98 percent to gamblers. The best deal for players, if you can afford it, was the casino's $10 slot machines, which kept a minuscule 1.77 percent of the money put into them, returning 99.23 percent to those spending their hard-earned cash.

In the middle were the casino's quarter slots, which returned more than 91 percent of the money put in back to patrons, and the $1 machines gave back more than 93 percent to gamblers.

But for those who want to play those machines, their best bet may be to play Mohegan Sun's multi-denomination slots. Those are machines on which a player can choose to bet in different amounts. In December, they returned 95 percent of the money that went into them. So gamblers had better odds dumping quarters into a multi-denomination machine, than playing those same coins on the quarter slots.