Loneliness, boredom and the lure of $6 in free cash were what drew 41 Southeast Asian refugees to a bus headed for the Colusa Casino Resort on Sunday night.
They were aunts and uncles, grandmothers and great-grandfathers, widows and orphans, survivors of communist regimes in Laos and Vietnam. Many feel marginalized in the United States, frustrated by the language and the parenting rules far different than the ones they grew up with.
So they flock to casinos by the thousands every week to be among friends and take their chances, maybe even get a free food coupon.
But the 41 Sacramentans, most of them seniors, never got the chance to put a nickel or quarter into a slot machine Sunday – their bus flipped, eight died and others were badly injured.
Heartbroken relatives went from hospital to hospital. Thomas Vang, a health worker and job developer for Sacramento Lao Family Community, finally found his mother, Mao Lee Yang, 78, with a broken neck in intensive care at Enloe Medical Center.
"My mom's very critical. She's not talking," Vang said. He exploded into tears when he finally found his father, Xee Hue Vang, 87, at the Newton-Bracewell Chico Funeral Home.
Instead of sitting at home, taking care of some of their 100 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Vang's parents would flee to the casinos.
"They just want to go out," Vang said. "My mom stays home, and she has diabetes and stress and depression."
Nearly every night for the past two years, his parents have gotten on a casino bus.
"And they go everywhere – Gold Country, Colusa, Cache Creek, Thunder Valley," Vang said. "We've been telling them not to go, but every time we talk about it, we end up fighting. I just can't stop it."
"My parents don't spend much money, $20 to $40 at the most," Vang said. "They'd get $10 from the casino, pay the driver $4 and make $6."
Another bus regular, Ma Lor Vang, thought she could parlay the free money and vouchers worth up to $20 at some casinos to supplement her Social Security income, said her cousin Mai Vang.
"She and her husband do not have much money," Mai Vang said through a translator. "She would use the winnings to pay for living expenses, like electricity and phone bills."
Ma Lor Vang, who emigrated from Laos in 1977, needed to relieve the stress of caring for her husband, who'd been paralyzed by a stroke, said another relative, Pobtsua Thao. She died in the crash.
One of the survivors, Ge Vue, told her daughter-in-law Yeng Her that she had the urge to gamble after a good dream.
"This is their entertainment and last hope of being rich," Her said.
Xia Kao Vang, director of Sacramento Lao Family Community, believes the casino bus trade preys on Southeast Asian seniors, who often blow their monthly Social Security checks as soon as they arrive.
"Many of them have lost a lot of money," Vang said.
"We went on Hmong radio last year and told them they need to stop gambling because there might be a danger," he said.
"Back in Laos, it doesn't matter how old they are, they keep walking around the garden and back and forth to the farm," said Hmong radio host Tsong Tong Vang. "Here they have nowhere to go – their kids are on the job all day and have no time to take the elderly somewhere."
Liw Saechao, 43, a Mien refugee from Laos who coordinated the Sacramento gambling trips for her boyfriend, bus company owner Daniel Cobb, said they provide a refuge for the aging refugees.
"They talk about the old days and the secret war (against the Lao and Vietnamese communists) and reminisce," Saechao said. "They all know each other, sing songs. It's just old people having fun – it's not only for gambling."
Saechao said she met Cobb, 68, on one of his first buses and then helped him to get Southeast Asian customers.
Cobb, who was one of eight who died in the bus crash, was operating four buses, some of which made two trips a day seven days a week to area casinos, mostly Thunder Valley, Saechao said. The maximum load is 47 passengers, which translates into more than 1,500 passengers a week.
Don Kennedy, director of marketing for Colusa Casino Resort, said Cobb's tours had been coming since 2006.
The casino hosts 150 to 200 coaches from various charter companies each month that often purchase packages that can include buffet coupons and gambling discounts and incentives, Kennedy said. In the resort's nine-year history, no drivers or buses have ever been involved in such a tragedy, he said.
That didn't help the many relatives of family patriarch Xee Hue Vang, one of the eight who died.
"He counseled his grandkids to live righteously and honestly and true in life," said granddaughter Nancy Yang, 21, of Stockton. "Who will guide us in life now? There is no one to replace him."
Call The Bee's Stephen Magagnini, (916) 321-1072.
