Foxwoods to Expand Poker Room

Connecticut’s Foxwoods Resort Casino announced this week that it will expand its poker room from 76 tables to an astounding 114, pegging spring for the grand re-opening. The announcement comes as the World Poker Finals are about to start at the casino.

Mark Rathbun, the poker room manager, said the room runs at 100% capacity on the weekends and does not die down much during the week, seeing 85% of its seats filled.

Some people may think it’s crazy for Foxwoods to push out 650 slot machines to make space for the new poker room (they are trading places, not all of the slots machines are actually leaving), but Kathy Raymond, Director of Poker Operations, sees it differently.

"It was more an amenity [when the poker room first opened in 1992]," she said. "But in the last couple years, it's brought to the table a different kind of benefit with the public relations and the marketing capabilities with poker right now."

“…I think the added value poker has given drawing players in, our management at Foxwoods has been savvy enough to recognize the value,” Raymond added.

The new room will be a state-of-the-art smoke-free area, which not only will allow for more players, but will also be designed to make signups easier. The tables will rife with technology, as well, with LED displays, automatic shufflers, and an electronic seat monitoring system to increase turnover rate.

Originally published October 27, 2005