I had been an IT contractor at Foxwoods. I didn’t last too long because I asked too many questions. We got paid more than the IT staff that had gaming licenses, and we contractors didn’t have gaming licenses. There was friction. The only gaming equipment we could touch were the Keno machines (probably because the numbers themselves are determined elsewhere). It was easily the most disorganized IT operation I had ever seen for an organization of that size. Especially one built recently (late 1990s) and hadn’t bought out other companies. Foxwoods had three completely different systems operating. Some was Microsoft, I think some was IBM AS/400, and some was Borland (!) based. They were also just starting to try using ISDN just as it was going out of style (I could never get it to work).
Our group was headed by a 5’4” ex-Navy guy with an attitude (a lot of Navy guys in IT). When he announced they were implementing thin clients, and locking down all the user configurable settings, I raised my hand and asked if they could at least allow users to adjust the mouse speed, as it is very frustrating if it is too slow. That day I was told it was my last week.
On my last day, I turned in my badge, put $5 on Keno, won $5, and left. I beat the House, and I will never gamble in a casino again.
When I hear stories about Indians wanted to be respected, and have their traditions and customs preserved, I just think of the leggy blonde cocktail waitresses (or whatever they were called, I worked mostly in office areas), wearing clingy little teal and turquoise minidresses, matching high heel pumps, and one feather.
Between that and the giant glass warrior Indian glass sculpture with a loud recording bellowing something every fifteen minutes (and then the sprinklers came on [Rain chants, I guess]), I realized the Indians were plenty good at exploiting themselves, as long as THEY get the wampum.
Great story.