Proliferation of Vegas strip clubs taps into casino business
 

Proliferation of Vegas strip clubs taps into casino business

Canadian Press
Saturday, April 26, 2003


LAS VEGAS (AP) - At his bachelor party at the Sapphire Gentlemen's Club, Brad Boeye and his buddies tossed $20 bills like confetti at topless women. By the time they left, they'd gone through $800.

The men would have been happy to spend their money at the MGM Grand hotel-casino, where they were staying, but this wasn't the kind of entertainment casinos offer.

"They need to have this," said Boeye, 30, a computer networker from the San Francisco Bay area. "They are losing out. ... We've got lots of money to spend."

Casinos are facing growing competition from strip clubs, or so-called gentlemen's clubs, that are increasingly sophisticated, well-financed ventures. There are 31 strip clubs in Clark County and Las Vegas, compared with about 40 major casinos on the Strip.

While strip clubs have always dotted the Las Vegas landscape, they've never been built on such a large and expensive scale. The magnitude of these businesses are catching the attention of casino owners.

"I imagine this is a phenomenon that's indicative of some trend," said Elaine Wynn, who along with her husband Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts, is building the Strip's newest casino, Le Reve. "Young people who are affluent don't find gambling to be entertainment."

The $30 million, 71,000-square-foot Sapphire sits on seven acres and boasts marble floors and plasma televisions. About 40,000 feet of the club has been approved for topless dancing, co-owner Peter Feinstein said.

The Sapphire is the biggest of the strip clubs, including the 25,000-square-foot Jaguars Gentleman's Club and a 24,000-square-foot club scheduled to open this year. It has 10 sky boxes that allow customers a sweeping view of the hundreds of topless dancers flitting about, jumping from lounge chair to lounge chair, customer to customer.

Feinstein said he expects a 25 per cent return on his investment, making the supersize strip club business more profitable than many major companies.

On a Saturday night, 2,000 to 3,000 men pour through the establishment. Taxis line up outside, one after another ferrying the men and their money to and from their hotels.

Las Vegas visitors are the reason the clubs are successful.

"They fall in love and spend all their money," said 21-year-old Piper, a dancer who migrated to Las Vegas from Los Angeles and has been stripping for a few months.

Mike Beezley, Jaguars' director of marketing, said casinos are feeling the pressure from the strip clubs.

"We raised the bar," he said. "We've made the casinos compete. Sex always sells."

The hotel-casinos are responding by making nightspots sexier or rolling out new ones to attract men.

Casinos are now selling sex, or at least the hint of it, on billboards around the city. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority airs commercials with the not-so-subtle message that anything is possible in Las Vegas.

Even the newest Cirque du Soleil show planned to open this summer at New York-New York hotel promises a "provocative exhibition of human sensuality, arousal and eroticism."

The two newest clubs on the Strip are the Risque at Paris Las Vegas, owned by Park Place Entertainment, and Tabu at MGM Grand.

Tabu is certainly racier than other casino-hotel clubs, but Gamal Aziz, MGM Grand president and chief operating officer, rejects any comparisons to the strip clubs.

"I wanted a place that is sensual and cool, not sleazy," he said. "It's not in your face. I'm providing a fantasy in a completely different direction. It's respectable."

Waitresses parade around Tabu in revealing outfits and offer bottle service at tables starting at $225. There is a private entrance for celebrities to get in and out of the VIP lounge without being seen.

Aziz and the people who designed the club say Tabu has nothing in common with the strip clubs down the street. They said people will go to strip clubs no matter what the casinos offer.

"If you're in Las Vegas and that's in your mind," Aziz said. "You're going to go. I much rather see them go to one of those places than my competitors. If they only go to those then I've done my job."

Aziz said Tabu recently did its first $32,000 night, with only a $15 cover charge and drink sales. He says Tabu will break even in about two years.

Risque offers customers something besides women in bikini outfits draped with black mesh and bartenders wrapped in red corsets: The waitresses will dance with you.

"If you look what's going everywhere," Park Place Entertainment spokesman Robert Stewart said, "the trend is to push the edge of entertainment."

"We don't market to families."

http://www.canada.com/national/story...9-AB0AC5127BEF

i think they are both equally great places to go if you like wasting money. must be fierce competition.