GAMING AMERICA | THE HUDDLE
MOHEGAN SUN RISING Gaming America had the opportunity to sit down with Ray Pineault, President and CEO of Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment (MGE), to discuss major trends in the industry today. Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment (MGE) recently launched a mobile betting partnership with the market-leading operator FanDuel. What does MGE hope to achieve with this partnership and why did you go with that operator as opposed to others? That’s a great question and I think that, for our mothership in Connecticut, it really came down to looking at who was the best operator in the United States, of who had a proven track record of being number one. FanDuel immediately rose to the top as that operator. We thought they were the perfect partner for our flagship property in Connecticut, which is the preeminent property in the Northeast. From there, we would launch digital gaming to our Connecticut and Northeast guests who are able to visit the state (because, obviously, you have to be within the state in order to participate). I think it created a very symbiotic partnership of teaming together the two preeminent names of gaming to offer a new product to our guests.
As a major land-based operator, is there a fear that the astronomical rise of mobile sports betting in this country will cut into your bottom line? Honestly, we don’t see mobile betting as cutting into anything. We see it as providing that complete omnichannel approach to marketing to and engaging 18 | GAMINGAMERICA
with our guests. We think the two will work in cooperation with one another – between our land-based casino and our digital division – to make sure that we are reaching our guests through that multichannel. Ultimately, we want our guests to have more opportunities to engage with us and we think it’s going to be more successful if they work together, and are marketed together. We will market our land-based offering online, and our online offering in the land-based setting. In this way, we will continue to engage and build guest loyalty.
How are you looking to further expand MGE’s online presence? In Connecticut, online betting has only been legal for a few months, since October 2021 to be precise, so operating online is still in its infancy and there’s still a lot of work to do. As you know, this is a work in progress and we need to make sure that we continue to refine it and continue to provide the best guest experience and product that we can. We are obviously already looking at opportunities where we can expand. We have already announced that we are in Ontario with our Niagara properties. We have the opportunity to launch our digital product there, as well, and we look forward to adding that in the very near future. We’ll continue to explore additional jurisdictions as we move forward. We want to make sure that,
RAY PINEAULT Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment (MGE) President & CEO
as we go into each jurisdiction, we’re doing it right, we’re doing it well, and it’s well received by our guests. We’re not going to run into jurisdictions just to be there, we’re going to do it so it’s done right and so it offers a great guest experience.
What is the difference between being competitive in the online world versus the land-based world. Do either demand different things from you as a manager? Each of the divisions – the online division and each of its operators – has its own
