So…Mohegan Sun

First, let me start by saying that I generally like casinos. I don’t gamble much; $20 is usually the most I’ll spend in a casino, and I try to stop if I’m up even a little. But I think that casinos make for fun people-watching, and try really hard to make you not want to leave. This was not the experience that I had at Mohegan Sun. The arena was awesome, although I am still mystified that I ended up in the second-to-last row, since I got my ticket in a presale. It was non-smoking, which was great, and a huge difference from the rest of the casino. That place was nasty! Ugh. It smelled terrible, and even though there were supposed to be designated smoking areas, people lit up everywhere except for the food court and the non-smoking gaming area. Even at the food court, you could not completely escape the stench of other people’s cigarettes. Aside from the four hours that I spent in the arena, I was only at Mohegan Sun for another hour, yet when I left, I smelled like an ashtray. It was gross. I had to air out my clothes overnight.

I find the Atlantic City casinos to be vastly superior in their regulation of where people can smoke. I don’t feel as nasty when I leave the casinos there. I can’t remember enough about Vegas casinos to say whether they were smoky, but I don’t remember feeling nauseated by them.

My feelings about Mohegan Sun were definitely tied into the fact that I’m a non-smoker with little to no interest in gambling. I think that if I smoked, or if I were more used to being around cigarette smoke, I would have noticed or minded less how bad I ended up smelling. Or, if I was used to gambling, I’d probably be more accustomed to smelling smoke.