Low Rollers : Forget the plush suites, limos and free shows. The good life for millions of gamblers, many from Southern California, starts when they catch a tour bus they pay little or nothing to ride. : Laughlin: The Little Las Vegas

OK, so it’s not Air France to Paris. But Antelope Tours bus No. 840 has a majesty all its own.

Tall and gleaming in the early-morning sun, it dwarfs the travelers straggling toward it. They arrive singly and in pairs at the Reseda parking lot, bundled shapelessly against the wind, clutching vinyl suitcases for a three-day gambling jaunt to Laughlin, Nev.

Two days will be spent aboard 840, a climate-controlled Mother Ship for 47 low rollers with nothing in common but seniority and destination.

“Jules, Jules, are you all right?” The bus is barely rolling and all are settled in their pre-assigned seats when a woman’s voice calls out.

“Jules, Jules,” the alarmed voice shrills again.

“I’m not dead,” her elderly husband grumbles. “I’m only dozing.”

Dorothy, a retired widow from Santa Monica, curls in her reclining chair: “New Year’s Eve I took the Lawrence Welk bus trip to Escondido. We got dinner, a play, stayed overnight and had brunch New Year’s Day at Hotel del Coronado--all for $189.”

She has bused to Reno and Tahoe, to Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, to Laughlin and Vegas and other scenic spots in the six months since she retired. Buses are “perfect for older people with less money than time,” she says.

More passengers board at Newhall, Palmdale, Lancaster, Rosamond and Mojave. Then 840 really rolls--soundless and bumpless through bleak desert landscape like a huge cradle, soothing riders till they doze.

Just when they do, hostess Irene Francom hits the front-seat microphone: “We’ll be stopping at Barstow for lunch soon, but I’ve got a little something here to tide us over.”

Part grandma, part geisha, the petite widow with champagne-color hair, black ankle boots, checkered pants and a lacy white sweater, dispenses candy, drinks and conversation. “I danced till 3 a.m. last night, and I’m still not tired,” she tells a rider. To another she confides, “I just got married again--on New Year’s Eve.”

The bus rolls into Barstow for a one-hour lunch stop at McDonald’s. “Driver’s side will exit first,” she orders, eliminating jostling before it starts.

In line for burgers, fellow travelers tend to chat.

A tall, well-groomed man says he works for Pacific Bell in a job that’s “sort of classified.” Something to do with anti-terrorist activity.

A handsome couple, dressed L. L. Bean style, say they “like to travel, but don’t like to drive.” She’s a housewife, he’s a 50-ish physician at Olive View hospital in Sylmar.

Joanne, a hairdresser from Glendale, says she “loves Laughlin because the scenery is 10 times nicer than Vegas.” She usually loves buses, although “believe me, I’ve been in some rattraps.”

On the road again, it’s bingo time. Irene is on the mike: “We’ll have two warm-up games, Then I’ll collect $2 from anyone who wants to contribute to the pot.” Everyone does.

They play until it’s time for 7-Up and cookies. When the last plastic cup is collected, Laughlin is in view.

Vegas it’s not.

In Vegas, neon signs tout Cher and Sinatra. In Laughlin they blink “Real Mashed Potatoes” and “Giant Ham Steak With Eggs.”

In Vegas, men in snazzy clothes squire glamorous women at Strip casinos. In Laughlin, both sexes sport polyester pants.

In Vegas, you need wheels to get around. In Laughlin, you need tennis shoes and 20 minutes.

The place has a Disney charm all its own. Its eight gaudy hotels are strung along the main street--the only commercial street--in town. Behind them, the Colorado River, with Bullhead City, Ariz., on the other side.

In front of the hotels is a newly widened road called Casino Drive, with nothing much on the other side except sand dunes, one hotel, and a discount deli with slot machines.

Bus 840 stops at the Colorado Belle, a 1,238-room replica of a river boat. This time the passenger side exits first--an organizational trick Francom says she learned while guiding tours in Europe.

She gives each passenger an electronic key card for a sixth-floor room, plus a booklet of discount gambling tickets. But by the time they reach their door, Jules and wife already have lost their card. Francom finds it. Five minutes later, they’re still fussing outside their room. They have the card, but don’t know how to use it.

From 5 p.m. Friday until 10 a.m. Sunday, 840’s passengers are on their own. But they have Francom’s room number--just in case of trouble.

Don Laughlin says trouble is rare in the city that bears his name: “We have very little crime, and its mostly minor. We’re starting to get a few purse-snatchings on weekends.”

He calls the place “Palm Springs with a river down the middle”--oddly ignoring the reasons for which he invented it: keno, blackjack, craps and slots.

Mostly slots, he says, because that’s what older people go for.

Laughlin--literally the Town Father--discovered the area in 1966, when it had no name and no buildings except a ramshackle, eight-unit motel and bar.

It sits on the banks of the Colorado River, 95 miles southeast of Las Vegas at the tip where Nevada meets California and Arizona. A perfect spot for gambling, thought Laughlin, who then owned a Las Vegas nightclub.

He bought the motel and six acres of land for $235,000 and opened the Riverside hotel and casino. When the area needed a post office, he recalls, his was still the only game in town. So the post office went into his hotel and the town was named for him.

He started with three employees; now he has 2,200. His casino now has 660 rooms, a first-run movie house and the only marquee in town blaring name entertainment instead of cheap food. Tammy Wynette and Waylon Jennings on a recent weekend, with Tony Orlando and Dawn coming soon.

Other casinos can’t or won’t fork up big bucks to pay performers, Laughlin says. Of course, he doesn’t actually pay them, either.

“I make a deal: They get the total gate from tickets sold to each performance,” he says.

The room seats 900; ticket prices range from about $25 to $35. Drinks and food are not included in the ticket price.

In another of Laughlin’s smooth moves, he built a much-needed $3.5-million bridge across the Colorado River and donated it to Arizona and Nevada governments. Of course the bridge is positioned so that all traffic coming from Arizona to Laughlin must pass his casino first.

For a long time, Laughlin, the man, seemed synonymous with Laughlin, the city. Not any more. Most first-time visitors don’t even know the place is named for a real person.

In the last few years, he admits, big corporations have stolen the limelight with flamboyant new hotels such as the 2,000-room Flamingo Hilton (with gourmet restaurant) which opened in 1990, and the Ramada, which features choo-choo train decor.

But at 59, with “his town” burgeoning and his casino handling “more than $100 million a year in revenues,” the silver-haired Laughlin says the more hotels that are built, the better it is for him.

The facts bear him out: Nevada figures show that Laughlin has passed Lake Tahoe and is steadily closing in on Reno, now the second largest gambling center in the state.

It’s Friday night. The Persian Gulf is burning. Most folks from Bus 840 are at the slot machines.

On this tour, there are no restrictions. For the $65 fee, they get transportation and two nights lodging at the Colorado Belle. They can gamble anywhere in town--or not at all. Because most are seniors, and tired from the trip, they stay put.

Like casinos everywhere, it’s perpetual dusk at the Belle--a permanent twilight zone with bright lights zigging and zagging on the high-tech video slots. Even half-empty, as it is tonight, the din is constant: Bells, whistles, sirens announcing winners, coins cascading into metal trays, waitresses offering free drinks, and perennial optimists telling each other that this machine is “the hot one.”

“Where’s a clock?” asks Anna, who wants to catch the news.

“There are never any clocks in casinos” a waitress tells her. “You’re supposed to lose track of time.”

In the lounge, a band called Santa Fe is revving up.

They are young.

They are hip.

They are duds.

Even the slow sippers are gulping down their drinks and standing up to leave.

“This booking was a big mistake,” says the lead singer’s girlfriend, who watches from the bar. “We were supposed to stay the week, but we leave tonight. We do great in Vegas, where the crowd’s not so old.”

“Laughlin is for young people,” says Melanie, 25, a resident for the past two years. “Those who say there’s nothing here but gambling are just plain wrong. We hike, we swim, we do water sports. The place is filled with people my age who want a better life than they had before, a slower pace. I grew up in L.A., graduated University High, lived in Century City, where I led a fast-paced life. It was fun and I made money, but I had no peace of mind.”

While most of Laughlin’s visitors are older, Melanie says, most casino workers are young. She works two jobs to pay the rent on an apartment she shares “because the wages aren’t enough.”

She’s saving to buy a house: “This is where I belong. This place is young and growing. I feel I’m an asset to this town.”

Over at the Loser’s Lounge in the Riverside, Golden Oldies are on tap for Saturday’s cocktail crowd.

Singer Don West (1 to 6 p.m. daily) wiggles through “Let’s Twist Again” while seniors twirl until hunger hits. When they reach the hotel’s all-you-can-eat buffet ($5.95), the wait in line is already 1 1/2 hours.

Back at the Belle, tour guide Francom is tapping her feet to Dixieland jazz. Big Tiny Little, formerly with Lawrence Welk but now a regular on the Vegas-Reno-Laughlin circuit, is playing his regular 2 to 8 p.m. time slot in the lounge.

“The age group he appeals to is our late afternoon and early evening crowd,” explains Bill Gorman, of the hotel’s marketing staff.

An understatement, perhaps. The silver-haired crowd is stomping and hooting while a brunette in a red-fringed dress belts out songs from World War II.

“From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli. We will fight our country’s battles . . . . “ The crowd is standing now, arms waving as if they held flags. “God Bless America” brings down the house.

Big Tiny and his sultry singer, Julie, apologize that their time is up and they must leave the stage.

There is no evening act. Santa Fe has already left town.

“Jules got lost last night,” Francom confides to an 840 passenger with whom she waits in the dinner line at the Belle.

“I had just dropped off to sleep when his wife phoned, hysterical, because she couldn’t figure out where he’d gone. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘There’s no place to go. Just call the casino and have him paged.’ I never heard from her again, so I guess he came home.”

The restaurant hostess wears red high heels, a slim red skirt and snow white hair. She and Francom start to talk. The hostess says she lives “in a double-wide with my gentleman friend. Actually, he has his own double-wide right next to mine. I do all the cooking for us both. It’s a very nice life.”

It’s a city of age extremes, of young and old, one hotel executive later says. Hotel workers are not unionized, and the jobs available and the pay scales offered just don’t appeal to middle-age people.

The executive explains that Laughlin attracts young people who want to start fresh. It also appeals to seniors who arrive from colder climates to work the hotels during winter.

“Hotels often keep jobs for senior citizens season after season, because they’re steady and dependable,” he says. “If they say they’ll show up, they do.”

At 10 a.m. Sunday, 840’s passengers gather in the lobby to wait for the bus.

Any luck? Francom asks. Nobody admits they won a cent.

“Don’t believe that one,” a passenger laughs, pointing to the woman who tried to find a clock. “I saw her last night and she said she won $800 at the slots. She just doesn’t want anyone to know.”

The ride home is bingo-less. “I think they’ve had enough fun and games,” Francom says. “They want to rest.”

Well, not totally. Driver Sam Dulin plays tapes of a comedy routine and Francom distributes order forms for those who want to buy them.

“This has been a wonderful experience, I’ll certainly be back,” says the Pacific Bell man with the top-secret job.

“Ditto,” says a married couple, who want to know from Francom what trip she’ll be guiding next.

Bus veteran Dorothy, from Santa Monica, sums up her happiness:

“Whoever invented these tours, they ought to build a statue to him.”