By Nando DiFino
It was 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, and a McDonald’s employee poked out from behind the locked doors of the restaurant to shoo away loiterers on Bowery Street. ”You can’t stand here,” she said. “Move to one of the sides.”
But the lingering crowd had more distant destinations in mind. Some were bound for
Ridership on the Chinatown buses that journey to and from the region’s casinos has been down since the crash. The 10:15 p.m. bus (which won’t start rolling until 10:44) is about half full. Each passenger gets a pair of seats to himself.
There’s some chatter — none of it in English — as the bus host walked through to collect everyone’s $15 for the round-trip ride to the Mohegan Sun. It’s an unwritten understanding that a small tip is expected for the driver on the return.
The lights went off about ten minutes into the journey, and almost immediately the sounds of arrhythmic snoring filled the air. Not one reading light is on, and while the mini-TVs hanging on each side are on, they show nothing but a dull black screen.
Saturday’s grisly accident, followed by another Chinatown bus crash that killed two on Monday, generated a flurry of coverage and calls for increased regulation of the growing fleets of discount coaches. But the little-seen world of the overnight gamblers remains largely unknown. What brings dozens of people to weeknight buses that won’t arrive at casinos until the small hours of the morning?
First, who’s on the bus. It is not just old people, as is widely assumed.
The bus riders, outside of being almost entirely of Asian descent, presented a wide mix of people. The group included travelers in their 20s as well as a mix of men and women, even a few young couples. Some were well dressed while others gave the impression that they were here mostly to get some sleep, with a short casino interruption.
Once the bus pulled into the Mohegan Sun at around 1:15 a.m., a clearer picture of these travelers’ incentives emerged. A casino host met the riders as they stepped off the bus and gave each person a $20 meal voucher and two $20 match-play vouchers. Some might be lured by gambling action, but it’s clear that others are just as eager for a chance to enjoy what amounts to a free meal.
The outbound trip takes only two and a half hours, but the return voyage leaving at 5:30 a.m. lasts four hours in the morning rush — a total of six hours of somewhat uncomfortable sleep. Add it all up, and it’s easy to see the appeal for some: pay $15 plus a few bucks for tip, get $20 worth of food and a $40 subsidy at the tables, then return in time for work the next day.
Dedicated gamblers can find games like Sic Bo, Pai Gow Tiles, and Mini Baccarat on the Internet. But the casino buses offer something more: a cheap escape from the city, a chance to be somewhere else for a night, temporary fellowship at the felt-covered tables, which have an abundance of open seats.
It’s not for everyone, yet after one trip it seemed puzzling not that this subculture existed, but that more New Yorkers hadn’t yet caught on to the night-gambling phenomenon.
After four hours in the Mohegan Sun, the group — along with some stragglers who missed or ignored their earlier departures — piled back onto the bus, parked in space number 16 just outside of the Sunrise Square, the casino’s self-styled “Asian marketplace.”
As the bus idled, two men in the back argued over whether it was now Tuesday or Wednesday, then got into a back-and-forth discussion on casino-bus regulars said to have died in Saturday’s crash. The rumors abound. One Spanish-speaking man exchanged his ticket and went to Foxwoods instead. A Russian man they know survived the wreck.
In the middle of the banter, the lights went down as the bus moved. “Oh,” muttered one of the gamblers. The duo fell instantly silent, observing the vehicle’s sleep-friendly decorum, and the sound of snoring again echoed as the bus crawled out of the parking garage.
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