Early this year, casinos discovered that Apple's iPhone could be a liability: In February, Nevada gambling regulators warned that one iPhone application could help blackjack players count cards.
Whatever the Apple smartphone's risks, Foxwoods Resort Casino has decided that it offers benefits, too — namely, a way to reach people and offer some mock gambling.
On Tuesday the Ledyard casino, which is struggling to manage staggering debts, announced its own iPhone application, or "app," now available from Apple along with more than 85,000 others. More than 30 million iPhones have been sold worldwide.
Foxwoods' free app, which must be downloaded through Apple's iTunes program, lets users play an electronic slot machine and offers tutorials on table games available at the casino. There's no actual money involved.
The app serves primarily as a marketing vehicle, one that offers virtual tours of the casino property, for example, and gives users access to a telephone hot line for making inquiries and reservations.
"This is just another way to reach a large audience and let the public know about everything Foxwoods has to offer," Foxwoods' senior vice president of consumer marketing, Robert Victoria, said in an e-mail Tuesday.
A Foxwoods statement calls the app the "first-ever resort casino branded application in the casino gaming category," a claim that Apple spokesman Simon Pope said the company could not verify. There are scores of other gambling-related iPhone apps, most of them primarily intended for game play.
Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods' chief rival, offers no iPhone app, and chief executive Mitchell Etess said Tuesday none is in the works.
"This is just a marketing strategy," he said. "Being in touch with your customer base is the goal and we think we do that very well via traditional and newer methods," including social network sites Facebook and Twitter.
Still, Etess said, "It's a great idea and good for them."
Les Bernal, executive director of Stop Predatory Gambling, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, said that the app would encourage problem gambling by making it easier for addicts to indulge their habit.
"It's part of an overall predatory marketing scheme to feed their business model, which relies on heavily addicted and out-of-control gamblers," he said.
Foxwoods' Victoria disputed the idea that marketing the casino feeds addictions.
"There are applications that help a person choose wine — they don't seem to endorse people to overindulge in alcohol," he said.
Whatever the Apple smartphone's risks, Foxwoods Resort Casino has decided that it offers benefits, too — namely, a way to reach people and offer some mock gambling.
On Tuesday the Ledyard casino, which is struggling to manage staggering debts, announced its own iPhone application, or "app," now available from Apple along with more than 85,000 others. More than 30 million iPhones have been sold worldwide.
Foxwoods' free app, which must be downloaded through Apple's iTunes program, lets users play an electronic slot machine and offers tutorials on table games available at the casino. There's no actual money involved.
The app serves primarily as a marketing vehicle, one that offers virtual tours of the casino property, for example, and gives users access to a telephone hot line for making inquiries and reservations.
"This is just another way to reach a large audience and let the public know about everything Foxwoods has to offer," Foxwoods' senior vice president of consumer marketing, Robert Victoria, said in an e-mail Tuesday.
A Foxwoods statement calls the app the "first-ever resort casino branded application in the casino gaming category," a claim that Apple spokesman Simon Pope said the company could not verify. There are scores of other gambling-related iPhone apps, most of them primarily intended for game play.
Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods' chief rival, offers no iPhone app, and chief executive Mitchell Etess said Tuesday none is in the works.
"This is just a marketing strategy," he said. "Being in touch with your customer base is the goal and we think we do that very well via traditional and newer methods," including social network sites Facebook and Twitter.
Still, Etess said, "It's a great idea and good for them."
Les Bernal, executive director of Stop Predatory Gambling, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, said that the app would encourage problem gambling by making it easier for addicts to indulge their habit.
"It's part of an overall predatory marketing scheme to feed their business model, which relies on heavily addicted and out-of-control gamblers," he said.
Foxwoods' Victoria disputed the idea that marketing the casino feeds addictions.
"There are applications that help a person choose wine — they don't seem to endorse people to overindulge in alcohol," he said.