Ridership is up on casino shuttle

With casino revenues down this year, it would be natural to assume there are lots of empty seats on the gambling buses heading to Cripple Creek.

It'd be a losing bet: Ridership on Ramblin Express is up about 10 percent so far in 2008.

With the economy going south and gas prices soaring, gamblers might be dropping fewer quarters in the slots.

But retirees and casino workers fill the seats on the bus as it climbs Ute Pass west of Colorado Springs.

A Casino Shuttle motorcoach departs hourly from the 21st Street Van Briggle Pottery parking lot to Cripple Creek after collecting riders from Pueblo and two other sites in Colorado Springs.

"We service about 125,000 passenger rides a year," Todd Holland, Ramblin Express president, said of this route.

About 60 percent are seniors and another 15 percent are casino workers. Rainé Talley of Colorado Springs relies on the Ramblin to get to her job preparing sandwiches and pizza in casinos. Other riders are weekend gamblers who would rather not worry about how much gas they're using or about having too much to drink to drive home.

Weekdays, it's mostly gray gamblers. If not for the bus, they'd have to find other ways to spend their golden years and the kids' inheritance.

The $25 round-trip bus fare is their ticket to fun.

For Gunda Dizon, it fends off the solitude of widowhood.

Jean Southcotte is lured by video poker and prime rib.

It gets George Hartt out of the house.

They go alone to gamble. Like kids, they gravitate to window seats. They sit, almost like strangers, in separate rows.

They know each other from riding the bus. They exchange a few words of greeting, but don't need constant chitchat to prove their camaraderie. The unspoken bond of their hobby unifies them.

A contented calm filled a recent morning ride to Cripple Creek after driver Lyn Frasier steered the 56-seat, 182-gallon-tank bus from the depot into Highway 24 traffic.

About a dozen regular riders leaned back in highbacked fabric seats, gazing out the panoramic bus windows as urban landscapes faded to rocky red hills dotted with green.

"Nobody has ever asked me about wireless," Frasier said.

The DVD video monitors throughout the bus stay black. No requests for that, either.

Rarely do cell phones ring on the ride.

Dizon, sitting in the front row, as usual, piped up a few times. "It's worth alone paying the $25 to see the scenery every day driving up there," she told a reporter in a bubbly German accent.

The scenery in Cripple Creek isn't so bad, either. "I give all the men the googleeye," she said.

The cha-ching of the slots is her main attraction. Her favorite nickel bandits await at Brass Ass Casino, where she cashes in on the coupons that are part of the bus ride package.

Some casinos sponsor the ride with $20 cash-back coupons redeemed after spending a certain amount.

It's a rebate, explained Southcotte, seated a few rows behind Dizon.

Southcotte hit a royal flush jackpot a few months ago. "I'm still playing on their money," she said, lowering her voice as if the casinos could somehow hear.

She visits most casinos on the main drag and gets a nice meal. "I have points at every casino," she said, "so I can eat wherever I like."

Hartt, across the bus aisle, sat with his hands on his lap, over his pockets. "What I make goes in this pocket. What I take is in this pocket. When this pocket is dry, that one goes home."

The bus steps are too steep for his wife's bad knees, so she stays home unless he drives. He's racking up casino points from play to cover a room for their 60th anniversary celebration in Cripple Creek.

"We spent our 54th at the Gold Rush," he said.

The bus emptied as soon as it stopped in Cripple Creek. Dizon, Hartt and Southcotte, coupons in hand, scattered, disappearing inside the storefront casinos.

Maybe they'll win. Maybe not.

Casinos might worry over revenues, smoking fines, the economy and legislation to raise bets.

The only worry on the bus is getting to work on time or finding a hot slot machine.

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CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0253 or andrea.brown@gazette.com