They were borrowing to expand in what turned out to be the run-up to the deepest economic downturn since the 1930s, the Great Recession of 2008.Ĭonstruction began in 2006 on the MGM Grand at Foxwoods, a hotel tower with 800 rooms, a theater and a gambling floor. Soon enough, it would become clear the Mashantucket Pequots had overextended - and at the worst possible time.

Still in his 20s, he was elected to the tribal council in 2004, a go-go time of growth that would swell Foxwoods into a behemoth, one of the largest casinos in the world. The original tower, the Grand Pequot Tower, opened in 1997, while the second opened in 2008. The resort has two hotel towers, with a total of 2,266 hotel rooms, and an arcade for children and teens. After graduating college in 1999, Butler started at the casino as a financial analyst.įoxwoods Resort Casino opened on tribal land in 1992. With 2,000 gamblers still in the casino at the planned closing time, it stayed open - and has never closed. He was turning 15 when the tribe opened Foxwoods in February 1992. To shake his hand is to get pulled into a friendly shoulder bump.īutler grew up in Montville, where the Mohegans built their casino in the village of Uncasville on an industrial site by the Thames River. With a trim muscular build, Butler still looks like an athlete. converted him from a running back to a defensive back.

He studied finance and played football as a walk-on at UConn, where Coach Skip Holtz Jr. “It correlated directly to the decline.”īutler, 42, the married father of two children, is what the tribe envisioned when the money started coming in: A young tribal member making a career on a reservation that had been all but abandoned in the 1960s, when the only inhabitants were two elderly women living in dire conditions. “After that, there was just this explosion,” said Butler, the chairman of the Pequots’ tribal council.

Connecticut casino public hearing