Holly Gagnon had just moved back to New England in 1992. Her husband, in the Navy, was stationed at New London, Connecticut. Staying with her parents in Massachusetts, her daughter was only a few months old.
Gagnon needed a job.
Her husband sent her a newspaper clip of an advertisement for a position with the Mashantucket Pequot Gaming Enterprise, which turned out to be the gaming and resort‑operations arm of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, responsible for running Foxwoods Resort Casino.
“I joined pre-opening for Foxwoods,” Gagnon says. “I was there from the ground up.”
Thus was launched a stellar career that has culminated in Gagnon being a 2026 member of the American Gaming Association Gaming Hall of Fame. She will be inducted during an invitation-only ceremony at G2E in Las Vegas with fellow honorees Bill Lance Jr., Scott Olive, and Tim Wilmott.
“I never when I was younger said, ‘Oh, my dream is to work in a casino,’ because I had no idea what was involved,” Gagnon says. “But once I got into it, I just never got bored. It was always changing and always evolving. I often say, ‘where else can you really work on strategy and then go right downstairs and watch it all play out in front of your eyes, and watch and talk to the customers and talk to the employees?’ ”
The tone of Gagnon’s career was set early. She graduated from Bentley College in Massachusetts, then followed her husband to Hawaii and attained an MBA from Chaminade University of Honolulu, possibly setting a record for the most distance between undergraduate and graduate degrees.
“That move took a lot of self-confidence, and it took a lot of courage,” she says. “And once you do a big move like that at a younger age … it really does open up so much opportunity because you’re not afraid of taking the opportunities that move you away.”
Asked to pick a favorite position she’s held during her career, Gagnon demurs, lest she favor any person or company. But the most fun? That was when she was CEO at a Choctaw casino, Pearl River Resort in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
“I had to assemble a team from nothing because it had gone through kind of a very tough time,” Gagnon says, “and watching it re-emerge, that was fun. It’s fun to create.”
Gagnon also was a founding member of Global Gaming Women. She remembers it being “scrappy” in its infancy and manning a table at the East Coast Gaming Conference, handing out pamphlets, asking to be recognized.
“It was such a need … if you don’t see it, you don’t believe it,” Gagnon says. “That’s a cliché, but you’ve really got to see people in those positions to really believe it’s possible for you. I definitely think it makes a difference.”
Gagnon’s resume includes stints with the Seneca Gaming Corporation, Chumash Tribal Enterprises, Caesars, and MGM Mirage. She is board chair for Bragg, president of Hospitality Gaming Consulting, and a distinguished fellow for the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ International Gaming Institute.
“I look back and I consider myself very fortunate to have had to work for great companies and to have the mentors I’ve had, but I also know that it was a very different experience for men in gaming, as far as the camaraderie, the sponsorship, and the mentorship,” she says. “And it’s been an absolute joy to see Global Gaming Women grow to where it’s gotten from the very beginning when we were contemplating it and putting it together. It’s a tough industry and there weren’t a lot of women in operations.”
