Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 19, 1995 TAG: 9510190008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: TUNICA, MISS. LENGTH: Long
Dennis Stevens leans back in his chair and stares intently at the nine of hearts and the four of clubs he's been dealt.
The blackjack dealer, a petite blond woman in a purple lam vest, has an ace showing.
Stevens, a mild-mannered Roanoke architect and family man, sips patiently at his Budweiser, then motions for another card. It's a three of clubs.
The cards add up to 16. He pauses, then asks for one more.
The seven of spades. He's busted.
As the dealer wipes away Stevens' two $5 chips, he grins and shakes his head.
But it's just one hand. And Stevens is just one of about 80 people from Roanoke and elsewhere in Southwest Virginia who may or may not pass by this same dealer today.
We have all arrived via chartered Boeing 737 for a one-day junket. Few of us are high-rollers. Most are retirees or people looking to have a good time on a day off. But we have one thing in common.
We are on a mission to find Lady Luck in this barren stretch of Mississippi River delta called Tunica County.
"I've been reading books and practicing up," Stevens says while waiting to board the plane at 9 a.m. in Roanoke. It's Thursday, Oct. 12: Stevens' birthday. He sprang for the $89 V.I.P. Trips' junket to the Sheraton Casino in Tunica as a gift to himself.
Stevens has played roulette in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, but he's ready to try some other games.
He's been playing blackjack against himself at home, using his son's cardboard POGs for chips.
``I told my wife I was bringing $50,'' he said. ``She said, `What are you going to do for the other seven hours?'''
The gaming starts almost as soon as we are in the air. Two women in row 15 are playing rummy before the jet even levels off from its climb.
Somewhere over Tennessee, our host, a woman named Sarah, starts a $10 drawing. Participants write their name or seat number on a $10 bill and turn it in. A silver-haired woman named Bernice comes down the aisle to collect the money. She holds a plastic grocery bag full of $10 bills over her head. It looks like a sack of fresh turnip greens. On the side it says, "Thank you for shopping."
A stewardess pulls out the two winning bills. Wally in 9B and a woman in 17D each grab a quick $130.
On the runway in Memphis, we wait to be loaded into buses for the 45-minute ride south to Tunica.
``Look at the money I'm losing standing here,'' shouts one man from the crowded aisle.
``I'm thinking of what I'm saving,'' laughs another.
One man, probably the only real high-roller among us, climbs into a limousine for the ride. The rest of us board two buses.
We roll down Elvis Presley Boulevard, past Graceland and Elvis' jet, the Lisa Marie. Past the Italian Rebel Pizza Parlor. Past the Lucky Food Store.
Heading down U.S. 61, most people talk about odds and hunches. Outside, the road is bordered on one side by the beginnings of the new, wider, faster 61.
On the other side are miles of cotton fields still white with millions of snowy puffs. The fields are interrupted occasionally by ramshackle houses surrounded by makeshift fences.
It's midday and sunny, but when the orange big-top exterior of the Circus Circus casino and the thousands of chasing lights at the Horseshoe casino appear, they are as bright as fireworks at night.
There is nothing else to be seen for miles. Just highway, hotels and a row of casinos. Somewhere off to the west is the Mississippi River.
We pull up to the Sheraton Casino, a big, rather reserved English Tudor affair.
``They don't build these places because everybody comes down here and wins," Lanny West of Roanoke says as he looks up at the marquee.
The doors open, and we spill onto the gaming floor.
Some take stools before slot machines. Others settle around pools of bright green felt.
Cash is turned into chips, and eight hours of gaming begins.
Carol Aspell of Roanoke moves rapidly from slot machine to slot machine, dumping in two and three $1 coins at a time.
She settles in at a $1 machine near the center of the casino and starts the wheels spinning. Three and four coins fall into the trough from smaller jackpots. She scoops them out, puts them back into the machine and hits the spin button again.
The wheels stop one at a time, left to right. A big red seven, another and another. Lights flash, bells and buzzers go off.
"Alright," says Aspell with remarkable reserve as she scoops the $100 jackpot into her plastic bucket. The machine still dings along.
"Time to quit that one," she says, and moves away.
Dennis Stevens leans over the corner of a craps table, waiting for the dice to tumble his way, his crib notes peeking out of his back pocket.
"It's going better than the blackjack," he says. "That didn't work out too well."
The difference may be his coach. A heavyset man next to Stevens gives him hints on how to bet, tells him what the odds are on particular rolls.
Stevens started at the table with $50. He has $90 stacked up before him.
"Eight," sings the dealer. "Pay red in the corner."
"Cocktails," sings the blue-eyed waitress with the low-cut top.
The dice are hot. The drinks are free. For the moment, everyone seems happy.
The Virginians on this trip are hardly the first to come to Tunica.
Just last month, Gov. George Allen visited in connection with the annual meeting of the Southern Governors Association.
``I'm well aware of Tunica,'' he told a reporter from the Memphis Commercial Appeal. But he said there was no groundswell of public support for casinos in Virginia.
Maybe not, but there's no shortage of willing gamblers, either.
Ron Assaid, owner of V.I.P. Trips, has been running junkets out of Virginia to casinos in other states for 15 years.
Besides Roanoke, he runs trips out of Northern Virginia, Richmond, Norfolk and Charleston, W.Va.
And he's not the only one.
On a recent Sunday, Assaid said, three different companies had trips to Atlantic City leaving almost simultaneously from Roanoke Regional Airport.
V.I.P. has only been carrying people to Tunica since April. Before that, trips to Biloxi were available.
The planes are almost always full. Assaid has a regular mailing list of 3,000 names, but he said most people hear about the junkets by word of mouth.
"Where else you going to go for $89?" he says.
For that $89, junketeers get transportation, a buffet meal, a casino T-shirt and a $10 gaming voucher.
Assaid says V.I.P.'s overnight trips to the Trump Castle in Atlantic City for $169 are the real way to go, but some people just prefer Tunica.
Assaid rarely goes to Mississippi, but he's missed only one trip to Atlantic City in 15 years.
``That's the bread and butter,'' he says. "That's my livelihood. I'm always on that one.''
It's 1:45 p.m., Central Daylight Time. Not that you can tell inside the casino, where the cacophony of the slot machines and the lights are always the same.
Red Hale of Roanoke is playing it conservative at the blackjack table. For two straight hands, he's won with cards totalling less than 15.
``I'm no big-time gambler,`` he says. Like many others on the trip, he's a retiree with some time on his hands. He comes to Mississippi to gamble about once a month.
Two more cards land in front of him - a five and a four. He calls for one more card by motioning almost imperceptibly with one finger, like a seasoned buyer raising the bid at an auction.
He holds at 15, and the dealer busts again.
``Oh, I've been all over," Carol Aspell says. ``I like to hit every slot machine before I leave at least once."
She's playing the quarters now, dropping a few into this machine and moving on to the next.
Others on the trip have begun to circulate to two nearby casinos as well.
The Sheraton, the Horseshoe and Circus Circus share a vast parking lot.
The Horseshoe has a western motif, but looks similar to the Sheraton inside. The biggest difference is the sound. It's quieter. Coins still fall from the slot machines, but they're not accompanied by a buzz or a ding.
At Circus Circus it is quieter still. Many of the gaming tables are covered up. Only a few people sit at the slots. Unlike the other casinos, here you can hear the music that's piped in.
It's Joni Mitchell. In a soft voice, she croons, "They paved paradise and they put up a parking lot."
Dennis Stevens has hit the slots and the video poker machines and made his way back to the craps tables.
He's down $60, but scrapping his way back toward breaking even for the day.
He's got $5 chips down all over the table. His coach from earlier is long gone, but he's betting with confidence. Thanks to a string of nines on the dice, his stack of chips is growing.
"Nine," calls the dealer. "Winner, winner, winner, winner, winnnerrrr!"
It's nearly 7 p.m. Central Daylight Time as we wearily pile back onto the bus. Carol Aspell hurries past the slow-movers.
She won't say how much, but she's a winner for sure.
"Housewife money," she says.
A thirtyish man in a baseball hat says he lost $800. He had been ahead by $1,800 at one point.
Sarah, the representative from V.I.P. Trips, asks if anyone is not on the bus who should be.
"Yeah, my $500," says a laughing voice from the back of the bus.
The bus ride and flight home are dark and quiet. Early on, the talk is of money won and lost, but even that fades.
Some people sip on their complimentary drinks, others rest.
Dennis Stevens naps quietly.
His birthday is nearly over, and he's only $35 poorer for his long day in the casino.
"I feel like I won," he said.
The plane bangs down roughly in Roanoke. There are winners on board, but the plane's heavy landing may belie the fact that some of us, at least, are a few bills lighter than when we left.
by CNB