Hall Of Honor: Tom Cantone, Entertainment Exec Revolutionized & Redefined Casino Entertainment At Mohegan Sun Arena

Some venues are just the place to be, attracting top talent, always on top of the list for the marquee events, buzzing nightly with tourists and the hustle and bustle that comes with the bright lights, big city. Think Madison Square Garden, Kia Forum, those types. Sometimes the venue itself is the attraction – Red Rocks and the Gorge come to mind with their natural beauty and bucket-list appeal.

Sometimes, though, the people themselves seem to be the ones in the middle of it who make the magic.

“I’ve always said 10,000 people who never met become one in seconds during a concert,” says Tom Cantone, President of Sports & Entertainment for Mohegan Properties, which includes the 10,000-capacity Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.

“This line we use all the time: ‘We don’t sell tickets, we make memories.’ Our business is about people, and it’s also about making memories for life,” he says. “And our product is fun. When the world is so bad and so chaotic, you come here for the next two, three hours, you get away from that and you can enjoy your world the way that you’ve imagined. Entertainment does that.”

Cantone seems to always find himself and his casino in the middle of it, from arena debuts for breakout artists like Lainey Wilson and comedy phenom Matt Rife, being the host venue for taped specials like David Letterman’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” featuring Adam Sandler to even, just by chance league scheduling, the WNBA debut of women’s hoops phenom Caitlin Clark in 2024.

For the nearly 20 years (since 2007), Cantone has led entertainment at Mohegan Sun, whose arena is also home to the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun. Of course, Mohegan Sun is primarily a casino resort destination, with an 185-acre footprint over 5.5 million square feet with two casinos, two luxury hotels with 1,600 rooms, spa, golf course, and dozens of shops in the rural village of Uncasville.

Modestly referring to everyone from staff members to former world leaders as FFL (“friends for life”), Cantone’s rolodex reads like a who’s-who of entertainment, pop culture and general celebrity. It’s all in his book, appropriately titled “Book ‘Em,” which contains first-hand accounts of stories about everyone from James Brown to Whoopi Goldberg to Hulk Hogan to former Vice President Al Gore. And television personality Regis Philbin, a true FFL, even wrote the foreword.

With a modest upbringing in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and attending Penn State University, Cantone, upon graduating, joined Hershey Entertainment and Resort Company as director of corporate marketing for the company’s theme park, resort hotels, arena, stadium and sports teams.

Credited with bringing the entertainment brand into the modern world, Cantone began a trailblazing casino career in Atlantic City, at The Sands, Trump Properties and Hollywood

Casino, later joining Foxwoods Resort Casino in Massachusetts, the largest casino operation in North America.

“I didn’t always have the biggest venue,” says Cantone. “Entertainment has the power to create instant branding and instant personality above the competition, on any given night on any given day. You don’t have to be the biggest. Many times, I had the smallest venue but the biggest names. I was out-gunning everybody.”

One booking that went a long way to redefine casino entertainment came in 1985 when Cantone convinced Eddie Murphy to play The Sands.

“I was an army of one in the ‘80s,” Cantone says. “Back in the days when a contemporary artist wouldn’t even think of playing a casino showroom. Eddie Murphy was the hottest attraction in the world, on the cover of magazines, ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and all that. I spent a while recruiting him or becoming friends with him when he was deciding to go on tour, and he decided to play my venue, the Sands Copa Room, which was a small venue. It broke the mold.

“From there, Linda Ronstadt came in, and Cher and Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, that generation broke the mold, and Vegas took notice,” says Cantone.

Superstars to later make their casino debut at Mohegan Sun include Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Robin Williams and dozens of others.

Those memories Cantone’s helped create are chronicled in his book with countless stories of his FFLs that reads more like the Hollywood Walk of Fame – first-hand accounts and stories about personal friends, memory makers and unparalleled superstars, from asking George Carlin to not do his famous “Seven Dirty Words” bit because it might offend the Trump family in attendance to making a deal to book Elvis Presley — on the day The King died in 1977.

“We’ve got a running crew here that’s been here for a long time, and we’re like a family,” says Cantone. “The relationships matter. That’s how we get the big names. Nobody knew Matt Rife, but somehow we tapped into him early and I convinced him to make his arena debut here. We did 12 in a row without spending a nickel of advertising. I look at social media, see who’s trending and who’s got the most noise out there. And I’ll book ’em. And believe it or not, they fill an arena.”

Mohegan has also operated Fallsview Casino Resort in Ontario, Canada since 2019. In February of 2022 our relationship with Billy Joel sparked another milestone — as a sellout show to officially launch the 5,000-seat OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino gained rave reviews and helped set the tone for future success. Since then, the OLG Stage has consistently impressed, taking the No. 1 spot in its category in 2025 in Pollstar and Billboard year end charts. The team books well over 1,200 shows per year and the recognitions we receive are a testament to the hard work and dedication of the best entertainment team in the business, Cantone says.

Crediting his parents for “raising him right,” Cantone says it’s important to treat artists both like FFL and family from the beginning, with artists like Eric Church starting in the casino’s “Wolf Den” club space before hitting the big time.

CMA Entertainer of the Year Lainey Wilson is another example.

“We did her arena debut here, and I had a cake for her and we made it fun backstage for her because I didn’t act like a fan, I was a friend,” says Cantone. “We make them feel special and they remember. Keith Urban told me when they see Mohegan Sun on the routing, everyone circles it because they know they’re going to have a great time.”

It helps to have a rocking arena venue rather than a schmaltzy casino showroom, though.

“The arena at the Mohegan Sun, to me, is a great rock ‘n’ roll building,” says Dennis Arfa, music chairman at Independent Artist Group and whose relationship with Cantone goes back to the Atlantic City days. “It’s just as vibrant as any building that you could be in, in North America. It doesn’t feel like I’m in a casino, and the crowds in my experience there are as jubilant as you can be anywhere.”

Crediting Cantone’s “integrity, dedication, passion and understanding of talent,” Arfa says Cantone has made Mohegan Sun Arena as busy and successful as any major arena in the country. Arfa, always wanting to make a splash and stand out with his own roster of artists, which includes legends like Rod Stewart, Metallica and Def Leppard, says Cantone took a chance and made a mark with Arfa’s longest-tenured client.

“Billy Joel for 10 nights at Mohegan Sun was incredible,” Arfa says of the 2008 run of shows. “That was before the concert residency had any popularity. We were ahead of our time, and nobody’s done it since, but it was a spectacular, successful event. Tom saw the big picture, and there was a certain risk he had to take, but they took the risk and they won. Victories like that are what helps raise the platform.”

The trust built over the years continues (and Arfa concedes Cantone “pays well, too”), with Mohegan Sun landing two nights of the “Rush: Fifty Something” tour taking place next fall, a comeback for the Canadian prog-rock three-piece (and IAG client) that has not toured since the death of drummer Neil Peart and seemed to be fully retired.

“It’s not a casino venue; we’re in the arena business,” says Cantone. “We do all of our deals based on covering the guarantee. We happen to have a casino. We happen to have hotel rooms. We happen to have restaurants and shopping. We’re just different here, but we don’t rely on the casino, we don’t rely on slot machines and restaurants.”

With continued relationships running deep and who you know being just as important as what you know sometimes, Cantone says the concert business remains strong, despite any challenges and new-normals that emerge.

“We have never been this busy, this far out, than we are now,” says Cantone. “There’s so much traffic on my venue calendar for next year that we’re two, three, sometimes four deep on holds. We’re sitting in the right spot right now, and honestly I probably have 92 deals right now, offers out there in play.”

Those new normals do factor in, though.

“Ticket prices are up because our guarantees and fees are up, so you have to scale it accordingly,” he says. Upcoming concerts include Ghost, Rod Stewart, Boy George & Culture Club, Bailey Zimmerman, Lamb of God, Meghan Trainor, Matt Rife and Goo Goo Dolls.

Asked if he has any plans to retire, Cantone quotes another FFL, Tony Orlando, who played his finale at Mohegan Sun.

“I’ll never forget, he said, ‘Tom, I can still hit the ball, but I can’t run the bases,’ so he decided to go out while he still could,” says Cantone. “So, I never think about it, but I’m sure as long as I can still hit the ball and run the bases, I’ll do it. When that day does come, when tomorrow starts without me, it’ll be a sad day for me. It’s been a great run. I still feel like it’s my first day on the job.”