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Sunday morning in New York's Chinatown, a group of elderly Chinese men gathers at Lucky China Bakery to wait for the buses to Atlantic City. Mostly hardened gamblers, they have seen their money come and go across the gaming tables of Trump Castle, the Hilton, and other casinos. Today, they gather around fearful looking 62-year-old Mr. Eng.

"It makes me sick," a friend tells him. "If you have lost your family money, you shouldn't get on the bus!" But Eng nervously looks at the clock; only 20 minutes until he boards the chartered bus with his dream of recovering his life savings.

Chinatown, in southern Manhattan, has a panoply of gambling options, including a state-run off-track betting parlor, state lotteries, illegal gambling dens, bookies, and innumerable mahjong games. Yet the biggest portion of gambling money flows out of China town into the coffers of Atlantic City casinos.

After the two-hour bus ride, the Chinatown elderly quickly scatter to spend six hours at Trump Plaza Casino, which provides $25 in coins as a reward for those who have paid the $15 bus fare. The seniors enter a self-contained fantasy world of glittering lights, mirrored columns, and crystal chandeliers. The buzzers, bells, flashing lights, and clanging of tokens dropping into slot machine trays can be mesmerizing in an environment with no windows or clocks.

On this Sunday, 47 buses are bound for the New Jersey city that legalized casinos in 1976. About 9 million people a year are brought to Atlantic City by casino buses, and Sunday is their busiest day of the week.

HOW TO HOOK A SENIOR: According to John Eades, 57, author of a new recovery book, Gambling Addiction: The Problem, the Pain, and the Pathway to Recovery (Thistle Press), increased gambling among the elderly comes at a huge cost to themselves, their families, and churches. "As older persons become addicted, they use Sunday as a gambling day, not a church day. Once they're hooked, they're ashamed to come back to church. They need to have a spiritual transformation to change."

Compulsive gambling causes people who have no past criminal behavior to suddenly write bad checks or steal money from relatives. Out-of-control bettors lose their jobs, gamble away cars and homes, file for bankruptcy, divorce, go to prison, or kill themselves—all because the addiction becomes paramount in their lives.

Gambling enterprises make it easy and affordable for elders to bet. Casinos commission tour companies to arrange low-cost trips to gather senior citizens from specified sites and bus them to the site.

"These trips are sponsored by everybody: church groups, banks, senior centers, retirement centers," says Dennis P. McNeilly, a 45-year-old Jesuit priest who is a psychologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Pat Fowler, 52, executive director of the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling in Orlando, asks, "Who else will pick you up at your home, take you to engage in an exciting activity in a safe environment, give you lunch, call you by your name, and make you feel important? Our society sees seniors primarily as disposable, and this industry has picked up on that."

Ron Pavalko, 64, director of the Center for Gambling Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Parkside, says, "The buses are really mobile senior citizen centers.

"They are extremely social places," Pavalko says. "Riders talk about their grand children, the future of social security, Medicare costs. But they also talk about gambling: who's got the loosest slots, the best buffet, or the friendliest staff."

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May 24 1999, Vol. 43, No. 6