By Nadia Oehlsen
“Free Trips and Buffet to Casino” promises the sign outside the office of Chicago Entertainment Tour. A fleet of white buses and vans, with the company name and phone numbers painted on their sides, beckons enough passengers to support four to six trips each day from Uptown. The earliest departure is Saturday at 8:30 AM. The latest, by reservation, departs any night at 8:30.
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As we pass McCormick Place, the man informs me that he has four adult children living here and one in the Philippines. I tell him about another gentleman I’d met on a bus returning from a Saturday afternoon trip. That man was in his mid-70s. He’d smiled sheepishly as he tallied the results of his most recent outings. “Today I lost $150,” he said. “Yesterday I won $80. The day before I lost $70. You win and you lose. I lose a lot more than I win.” He said he moved here from China 50 years ago, raised a family, then moved with his wife to South Carolina some 20 years ago. They came back in 1992, moving into the house they still owned near Foster and Clark to be close to their children. “My wife died last year,” he said. “After that, I started going here.”
He’d taken the free bus to the Empress almost every day for the past six months. The 10:30 to 4:30 trip was his favorite, he said, because he’d struck up friendships with other people who favored that trip and the free buffet provided a good lunch. He marveled at the business savvy of whoever founded Chicago Entertainment Tour, which he reasoned must make good money. According to the Indiana Gaming Commission, Empress’s Hammond casino took in $196 million last year. He figured that meant it grossed about $80 per person per day. Minus the cost of employees and free food and paying bus companies like this one, he mused, the Empress would take about $40 per gambler. We guessed the bus company might make at least a quarter of that per head, because we’d have to pay $10 if we lost our passes.
The dining room looks like a giant fish tank, with outcroppings of pink, yellow, and green coral and huge windows offering a fine view of Lake Michigan. I’m the last to make my way through the buffet, which is laid out in what appears to be the broken hull of a sunken ship. The three Filipino friends smile and wave for me to join them at their table. In 15 minutes we down a feast of prime roast, ham, egg rolls, soup, fried chicken, pizza, salad, steamed vegetables, fried rice, rolls, pudding, cobbler, ice cream, pop, and coffee. Another woman from our bus and her mother sit with us, but they take their time eating. They plan to skip the 8:30 cruise, which leaves in five minutes. They’ll graze the dining room, maybe take a stroll along the lakefront, then catch the 10:30 cruise to gamble for 45 minutes before they’ll catch the bus home at 11:30. I’m told the boat rarely leaves the dock, though we can only board at specific departure times. Once we’re on board, we can leave after 15 minutes or stay on the rest of the evening.
Boris began to go to Vegas regularly. Whenever he came out ahead, he’d buy a money order made out to himself and mail it to his apartment in LA. That way he wouldn’t gamble with his gains. “You have to bet $200, $300 to make money, but you don’t bet it all at once,” he said. “I saw a guy here put $700 on one bet. He turned pale. He was shaking. I said, ‘Hey, I think you’re getting out of control. It’s better to lose one little finger than lose a whole arm.’ He said, ‘Mind your own business.’ He won, but it’s not worth it. Maybe his heart would stop.”
Boris, who now lives with his third wife, also scoffed at how people choose their lucky machines. “People think the new machines are better,” he said. “That is the opposite. If the new machine costs $10,000, it won’t pay out much until it’s recovered $10,000.” Finally, Boris led me to a “Lucky 7s” dollar slot machine on the Diamond Level. “This one I won 500 coins,” he said. Then he led me to another one on the Emerald Level. “This one I won 300 coins,” he said. “You put 30 coins in and then you win.”
