`MERV' LEAVES HIS MARK ON GLITZY CASINO CRUISER

METROPOLIS, Ill. -- The first person you notice once aboard the Players Riverboat Casino is Merv. Old television programs starring your host, entertainer Merv Griffin, beam from video monitors in the lobby. Every few minutes Merv's taped voice volubly welcomes you aboard his $7.5 million floating casino.

He and the ticket-takers wish everyone a lucky day.

The lucky days last from 8:30 a.m. until midnight weekdays, and from 8:30 a.m. until 3 a.m. on weekends.

Many of the people streaming through the entrance on a Monday afternoon are seniors dressed in their best play clothes. They leave their cameras behind, though they're forbidden on the boat.

The casino gift shop sells T-shirts and earrings for the tourists and fancy $95 blouses with playing-card motifs for people who plan to get some wear out of one.

The triple-decker boat, carpeted to continue the playing-card theme, holds 634 slot and video-poker machines, 28 blackjack tables, four dice pits, two roulette wheels, a wheel of fortune, three bars, one snack bar and 1,400 life jackets.

A stereo system plays pop and country tunes.

The first deck is a high-stimulus chamber of jangling bells and flashing lights, the sound and fury created when hundreds of people with plastic cups full of tokens descend upon row upon row of slot machines.

Pink and yellow neon signs above one row of machines carry the imperative: "Win a Car."

The second deck has a few more slots, but the atmosphere is permeated by the intense concentration of the casino games. Every move and exchange of chips are watched carefully by someone, from pit bosses to security personnel. Dealers and others who run the gambling games take a 20-minute break every hour.

The players are a varied lot: A baseball-capped gent whoops and sidearms the dice like a veteran of alley craps games; a turned-out Martha Stewart look-alike plays musical chairs at the blackjack tables.

On this Monday at 3 p.m., the third deck is more low-key. There are more slots, a few unused blackjack tables, a snack bar and a few unused tables. Few are used.

The surface of each bar is lined with video slot machines.

The players include Harold Jose, a retired meatcutter. Jose is one of 54 members of the 50-Plus Club on an outing from Assumption Parish in St. Louis. Their ages range from 67 to 82.

The club members take many trips together, and sometimes gambling is the recreational activity.

After spending 45 years cutting meat, "It's time to get out and enjoy life," he said.

Jose plays dollar slots exclusively, and has lost his self-imposed $100 limit halfway through the three-hour cruise.

"My system is 100 bucks win, lose or draw," he says.

He spends the rest of the time watching his companions play the more time-consuming nickel slots.

On Jose's best day of gambling he won $350. "It was five hours of standing," he said. "That's harder than working."

Jane Roberts, who owns an antique store and a bar in Cobden, is another of the Monday afternoon players. She combines gambling with trips to see her husband, who is in a nearby nursing home.

This is her fifth or sixth cruise on the boat. She usually doesn't lose more than $200. It depends on "how much I can afford to lose," Roberts says.

She has won a couple of hundred dollars at a time, but has always fed it back into the slot machines.

Slot machine players have a choice of pushing a button or pulling the handle. "I love to pull the handle," Roberts says, proudly showing off her blackened hand.

The casino keeps cups of Handi-Wipes nearby for the unautomated players.

Not many people are out on the small decks watching the scenery as the boat coasts the Ohio River banks. Stephanie Loehrlein is there drinking a beer, having lost $30 playing the quarter slots. "I didn't want to lose more," she said.

Loehrlein, 24, is a police officer from Evansville, Ind. She has come just for the day with her fiance, also a policeman, and another officer. Metropolis, the closest gambling boat to Evansville, is an hour-and-a-half drive.

She likes the boat, especially since her fiance loves to gamble. "This saves a plane trip," she says.

As for "criminal types," she hasn't seen any. "Not the kind I deal with. You've got to have money to come in and gamble."

The 3 p.m. cruise, which left Metropolis at 3:40, ends at 5:30. But an announcer says the players are invited to continue gambling and remain aboard the next cruise for free.

Fast Eddie's, a new no-takeout bar-and-grill specializing in steak-on-a-stick, is frequented by casino workers ending their shifts. Nancy Dishmon, having a sandwich after her workday in the casino's accounting department, lives 35 miles away in Milburn, Ky.

The 28-year-old former Chicagoan was unemployed for six months before the casino opened. Her first job was in casino credit, where she did background checks on people who request a line of credit.

"We see the same people every day," she said. "There are a few high-rollers around here."

She said a $20,000 line of credit is not unheard of.

She is glad to be an employee of the casino, which she said provides a good benefits package.

"I feel like there's a lot of opportunity ... I could be a dealer if I like."

Dishmon says employees are not allowed to sit in chairs on the boat and are prohibited from gambling. "We are employees at all times, not customers," she said.

Not everyone in her life is happy about her choice of occupations. Dishmon's hairdresser disapproves. But gambling ought to be an individual decision, Dishmon maintains.

"People worry too much about saving the world. I'd rather have an income than be on unemployment," she said.