Of the two Connecticut casinos, Foxwoods is better for card counters. They offer an eight-deck game with about 75 percent penetration. In the Newport high roller casino they offer a six-deck game. Foxwood’s rules are: DOA, DAS, S17 and they are now offering late surrender. The only negative is that you can’t re-split aces.

Blackjack games at the Mohegan Sun have gone from bad to worse. In fact, the Mohegan Sun is a wasteland for counters. They used to deal a six-deck game at all tables with two decks cut off giving you only around 66% penetration. Now, however, continuous shufflers have replaced many of their six-deck games and the rest have been switched over to eight-deck games. The rules at the Mohegan Sun are the same as Foxwoods, however, at the Mohegan Sun you are not allowed to split tens if you so desire.

The Mohegan Sun is actually two casinos: The original Earth Casino and the newer Sky Casino. One thing the Mohegan Sun casino lacks is consistency in the number of decks and their mid shoe entry rule.

You can still find a few six-deck games in the "Spring" section of the Earth Casino and in the high roller pit near the Fall section. In the Earth casino they do allow mid shoe entry on their six-deck games. However, over in the Sky casino you will find six-deck games in the high roller pit and in the adjacent pit # 22. The six-deck games in the Sky casino have No Mid Shoe Entry even though the penetration is terrible.

The comps at the Mohegan Sun have also been tightened more than they were before. Foxwoods is by far the more liberal of the two casinos when it comes to scoring a comp. Both casinos use the same comp system. Each point you earn is equal to $1, which can be used in the restaurants, retail stores or to pay your hotel bill. The Mohegan Sun also has a gas station and you can use your comps there as well.

As of June 1^st Foxwoods is offering same day cash back to their slot players. With the new cash back program players can redeem half of their points for cash at the rate of 50 cents per point. For example: If a slot player earns 20 points for the day, they can redeem 10 points for $5 in cash and the other 10 point remain on the players card.

The Mohegan Sun closed their poker room a few years ago and claim they have no plans to re-open it any time in the near future. Foxwoods expanded their poker room last November and now have a World Poker Tour branded room with 114 poker tables.

Unfortunately, Connecticut is a video poker wasteland. Foxwoods has three, old Double Jackpot machines in the old Bingo Hall. These are the only three full pay machines in the casino and I think they are there by mistake. They used to have full pay Pick’em poker, but they recently changed the pay table so 3-of-a-kind pays 4 instead of 5 coins. Most of the JOB are 6/5 machines and all of the deuces wild games are short pay as well.

The Mohegan Sun still has a six or seven full pay Pick’em games in the old poker room. All the others have been lowered to pay 4 coins for 3-of-a-kind (they way Foxwoods did). There are no other playable video poker games at either casino.