They don’t take off from Beverly Hills,” said Dr. “They don’t take off from the Santa Monica pier. Many of those killed in the crash last weekend were Latinos, and they boarded the bus in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. The tours typically draw a similar demographic: older, lower-income and, often, minorities. Many, like Ruiz, travel from big cities to out-of-the-way casinos and stay for as little as four hours before the buses head home. It was the latest in a growing number of casino bus tragedies around the country, from New York to Minnesota to Texas.įatalities involving casino buses have become so frequent that the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates major crashes, is studying them for common patterns, said Earl Weener, an NTSB board member overseeing the crash probe of the USA Holiday bus.Īs casinos have proliferated, buses ferrying gamblers have become a fixture. Ruiz was killed along with 12 others, including the bus driver who also owned the USA Holiday bus. Like others who routinely board buses bound for distant casinos, Ruiz wasn’t so much dreaming of striking it rich, just escaping her normal life for a few hours to socialize, snack and play the slots.īut this night out ended in disaster on the freeway near Palm Springs when the bus slammed into a tractor-trailer in the pre-dawn darkness Sunday. LOS ANGELES - Rosa Ruiz returned from a gambling jaunt to San Diego before dawn Saturday and was back on another bus that evening, headed for a desert casino. Casino-bound travelers board a tour bus in Los Angeles recently.

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