She's a 77-year-old slightly overweight white-haired widowed grandmother from northeastern Pennsylvania who has worked the past 15 years for the state at a minimum wage "Green Thumb" job. But five or six times a year, she and two of her closest friends pay $22 to a bus company that hauls passengers the four hours to Atlantic City.

    "I can't afford not to go," Gloria Adams says with a twinkle. Depending upon which casino the bus goes to, and which day of the week it is, each bus rider receives $10-$15 in tokens from the casino, usually another $3-5 good for the next trip, and a $3-5 meal credit. She can choose from any of 92 restaurants or 30 cocktail lounges; if she eats at one of the lower-priced buffets, her meal is almost free. To lure 31 million "visitor trips" a year, one-third of whom come by bus, casinos spend about $800 million a year, one-fourth of their revenue, on promotion.

    For most senior citizens, the $15-25 worth of "comps" is sufficient. But, for the late evening "high-rollers," the ones who think nothing of dropping a few hundred every Black Jack hand or roll of the craps dice, the casinos will provide free limousine or helicopter service, luxury suites, food, beverages, show tickets, myriad trinkets from keychains to suits, and just about anything a loser could want.

    Every day, about 800 buses, each carrying 40-50 passengers, most of them women over 55 years old, pull into the casinos, stay six hours, then leave. With travel time, combined with limited bus parking, the casinos have figured that six hours is the "right" time for the "low-rollers." On the casino floors the senior citizens scramble to their favorite slots--they have 23,000 to choose from--and most won't leave for three or four hours, just shoving coin after coin into the machines, watching the dials spin, and hoping for a jackpot. They'll crowd the nickel slots first; few ever try one of the 46 $100 slots. They'll put in five quarters, get a cherry, and win two quarters which hit the metal coin tray and boldly announce yet another "winner." Sometimes, they'll get mini-jackpots of five, ten, even twenty times what they shoved into the slot. But, they'll recycle the change, hoping for the Slotbusters payoff that'll give them and their grandchildren an income for life. Sometimes, even if there are people waiting, they'll play two slots at once; if one doesn't pay, its neighbor will--at least that's what many figure. And most go home with less money than they came with. It's not unusual for bus travelers to drop a hundred, two hundred dollars in their allotted six hours at the casino. A few have dropped most of their entire month's social security checks.

    For their part, the casinos tell their players--in TV commercials, on all the printed literature, even in random announcements beamed from concealed loudspeakers--to "bet with your head, not over it." But then they put an acre of machines, tables, dealers, and provocatively-dressed hostesses into an air-conditioned room that has no windows or clocks, and entice their victims to sign up for plastic card memberships that, when inserted into slots, record the number of times a coin was dropped, and lead to even more trinkets to lure them back into the casino. The casino also sends employees around to convert currency into coins, and provides free drinks for parched throats that yell encouragement to the machines, and "wipes" for fingers that become dirty handling all those winning coins. For those who have arthritis or don't have the energy to pull a lever, the slots even have push buttons. The casinos want their victims to sit there, in one spot, and lose. If they could figure out a way to catheterize the players so they don't even have to go to the bathroom, they would.

    Gloria Adams often comes back with more than she began with. "I know my limits, and I don't go over them," she says, emphasizing that unlike some players, she never resorts to using a MAC card to get "just a little more" playing cash, just in case the "big one" is on the next slot pull. It doesn't upset the casinos. They like it when people win. Nothing entices other people to lose money like the ching-chang of coins dropping into slot trays, and the excited boasts of winners back home. But, most of the gamblers are supposed to spend the freebies, then gamble some more. It has worked very well for more than fifteen years.

    According to the Casino Control Commission, the "handle," the amount of money bet, since the first casino opened is about $30 billion, about 55 percent of it from slots. Last year alone, the revenue, the amount of profit prior to expenses, was about $3.2 billion. By law, each slot machine must pay back at least 83 percent of its take; most now pay about 90 percent. The Casino Control Commission even makes public which casinos have better payoffs and which groups of machines pay better than the others. But, few study the numbers, and none of the casinos see any reason to post them. With accountants taking advantage of every tax law and loophole, and with the casinos themselves heavily leveraged, the after-expenses "net" last year was a mere $165 million.

    The first of the twelve casinos went into business in 1978 following a statewide referendum to allow gambling in a city that had combined Miss America, salt water taffy, rolling wicker chairs, a four-mile boardwalk—and a deteriorating downtown, tenement housing, and the state's highest violent crime and poverty rates. Gambling will save the city, proclaimed the voters, the legislators, and even businessmen who planned to mine the east coast, smugly knowing that a third of the nation's population lived within six hours driving time of Atlantic City and could easily be lured to a gambling empire that promised instant wealth. For its part, the casinos since 1975 have paid over $2.5 billion in revenue taxes, $850 million in property taxes, $575 million in regulatory fees and licenses, $760 in federal corporate taxes and $250 in state corporate taxes. Another $375 million, $40 million last year alone, from a 1.25 percent tax, went to Atlantic City's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to be used for civic improvement.

    For its part, the state of New Jersey has been so appreciative of receiving money, it has built a 43-mile long expressway from Philadelphia directly into the Boardwalk. To lure even more middle- and upper-class marks to the casinos, the city and state are building a $254 million 500,000 square floor convention center and a $70 million three-block "corridor" to link the center with the Boardwalk.

    By the mid-1980s, speculators and the casinos had gobbled up all available land in Atlantic City, expecting as many as thirty-five casinos to rescue the city. Only when it appeared there would be a saturation of twelve casinos could the school district (which last year received 69 percent of its $33.5 million property tax income from the casinos) finally buy enough land to relocate its high school. But, the taxpayers of the proposed $80 million high school still had to pay $8.7 million for 48.8 acres, a lot for a school district but less than the $4.6 million the Showboat recently spent for three acres so it could add 200 more hotel rooms.

    Although city officials are now proudly proclaiming a renaissance for the ocean front resort, which has received about $500 million in property taxes from the casinos since 1978, about 69 percent of its property tax base, they are also faced by the blemish that four of the past six mayors were indicted on a variety of malfeasance and criminal charges, the downtown has deteriorated even further, population has declined 14 percent since the first casino opened, there has been an increase in violent crimes and prostitution—and poverty is still the way of life for a large chunk of the 38,000 residents who live in a city with no theaters and only one supermarket. So deteriorated has Atlantic City become, even with its proposed massive revitalization, that most of the 41,800 casino employees won't even live in the city where they work.

    Nevertheless, no matter what the city's problems are, the buses still come to Atlantic City, and senior citizens flood the casino floors by day, and the high-rollers take over by night. And the ching-chang of coins continues to lull Americans into believing that the good dream belongs to them.

Copyright 2001 Walter M. Brasch