Mohegan Sun Pocono President and General Manager Mike Bean recently announced his departure at the end of May from the company that he helped build and manage for more than a decade. Bean said he has plans to join another company but declined to say which one because it was “not an appropriate time. I’m moving on from Mohegan Sun Pocono. I just have an opportunity that I definitely want to take advantage of.”
Bean joined the company, located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 2005 as vice president of administration. “When I arrived, basically it was a racetrack with a plan,” he said. The following year, Mohegan Sun become the first casino in Connecticut. Bean was named assistant general manager in May 2010 and was promoted to president and general manager in October 2012. By then Mohegan Sun was one of the largest gaming destinations in the region, with more than 2,300 slot machines, 90 table games, harness racing, retail stores, restaurants, bars and a comedy club. The facility added a $50 million, 238-room hotel along with a 20,000-square-foot convention center in November 2013. With nearly 2,000 employees, the property ranks as one of the top employers in Luzerne County. “It’s been tremendous expansion,” Bean said.
In 2015 Mohegan Sun had a combined table and slot revenue of more than $265 million, a 1 percent increase over 2014, according to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. Owners have invested $659 million in the site and have paid about $1 billion in state taxes since 2005.
Bean worked at Harrah’s Entertainment, Boyd Gaming and Foxwoods Casino prior to joining Mohegan Sun.
During Bean’s tenure, the casino experienced several high-profile employee theft cases. Former pai gow dealer Dustin Raynor Laird pleaded guilty in January to theft charges alleging he intentionally dealt himself losing hands to help players who paid him off, costing the casino more than $17,000. Earlier this year, former slot supervisor James Clayton Benczkowski was charged with stealing more than $25,000 from the casino by over-reporting the amounts in transactions customers disputed. And in January, Robert Joseph Pellegrini, former vice president of player development, was charged with conspiring with cocktail waitress Rochelle Poszeluznyj to steal and duplicate player’s cards that gambler Mark Joseph Heltzel used to win nearly $420,000, which the trio split.
Bean said those cases had no impact on his decision to leave the casino. He noted the casino employs advanced security measures and that the state police and Pennsylvania Gambling Control Board maintain offices there. “That group of people does a very good job here, and 99.9 percent of our team members do the right thing,” Bean said.
Bean serves on the boards of directors of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry, Scranton Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Wyoming Valley, WVIA, Bold Gold Broadcast & Media Foundation and Luzerne County Community College Foundation. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Bryant College and a Juris Doctorate from Vermont Law School.
