Mashantucket — Scott Butera, the Foxwoods Resort Casino executive credited with negotiating the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe’s massive debt-restructuring, will resign at the end of next month but continue to advise the tribe on financial matters.

“It’s not like I’m completely walking away,” said Butera, Foxwoods’ president and chief executive officer since December 2010.

In a phone interview, Butera said he was stepping down to pursue a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” outside the gaming industry. He said he could not yet disclose the opportunity.

“It was somewhat unexpected, something I’m passionate about, and it came up,” he said. “It’s one of those things where if I don’t pursue it now, I never will.”

The Mashantuckets, the tribe that owns Foxwoods, announced Butera’s resignation in a press release. It said he will vacate his position Oct. 31 but will remain with Foxwoods as “a senior advisor with regard to financial and strategic matters, including leading all negotiations with its lenders.”

Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket tribal chairman, praised Butera’s contributions.

“He stabilized our financial footing through successful restructuring of debt, rebuilt our core management team and executed a deal with Tanger Outlets that is expected to draw three million visitors annually to the property,” Butler said. “Scott’s efforts have repositioned Foxwoods as one of the Northeast’s most dynamic gaming resorts.”

The tribe defaulted on $2.3 billion in debt in 2009, and a year later hired Butera, who arrived with a reputation as a “turnaround artist.” He had previously led restructuring efforts at Las Vegas-based Tropicana Entertainment and Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts. Before that, he spent 15 years as an investment banker.

Since the Mashantucket debt-restructuring, Foxwoods has continued to struggle. Last month, the tribe announced that as of June 30, it had failed to comply with certain terms of the loan agreement it had reached in the restructuring and had begun talks with senior lenders to address the situation.

Moody’s Investors Service, which lowered its credit rating on the tribe’s debt, as did Standard & Poor’s, reported that the tribe faces non-bank debt service payments at the end of this month.

“We’re still in very constructive talks with lenders,” Butera said Wednesday. Asked if the tribe would default on a payment Sept. 30, he said, “I can’t speak to that.”

“The property has been doing well recently,” Butera said. “A lot of the plans we put in place during the tougher months have paid off.”

In June, Foxwoods curtailed weekday hours on a portion of its gaming floor. It has been trimming its workforce for some time. For the nine months that ended June 30, it employed the equivalent of 5,800 workers, 9.6 percent less than during the same period the previous year, according to a quarterly report.

The announcement of Butera’s resignation came the day after another major development involving Connecticut casinos — the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s awarding of the Greater Boston casino license to Wynn Resorts rather than Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods’ neighboring competitor.

“Wynn’s a visionary, a great developer, so I’m not surprised Wynn got the license,” Butera said, referring to Steve Wynn, the casino company’s chairman. “But it was a close call.”

Butera said Foxwoods remains interested in pursuing the still-to-be-awarded southeastern Massachusetts casino license provided Massachusetts voters reject a referendum drive aimed at repealing the law that authorized Bay State casinos.

“At this point, we want to see how things go in November,” he said. “But we’ve got a site in New Bedford that we’re happy with and we have a good relationship with the city.”

Butera said the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s plans to pursue an Indian casino in Taunton, another southeastern Massachusetts city, are “unrelated” to Foxwoods’ plans.

Mitchell Etess, the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority’s chief executive officer, was asked Wednesday whether Mohegan Sun would shift its focus to southeastern Massachusetts, having failed to win a license in either Greater Boston or western Massachusetts.

“At this point, we have not even thought about southeastern Mass.,” he said. “We were solely focused on the Boston license.”

b.hallenbeck@theday.com

Twitter: @bjhallenbeck