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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Wynn Resorts Ltd. CEO Steve Wynn says his swanky $2.3 billion Encore casino — which opened Monday in an economy that's battering casino, travel and other consumer companies — is about perfecting the basics.

"Better service, nicer rooms, better lighting," Wynn told The Associated Press. "Themes that are corny get old quickly, but real and wonderful environments with great service are timeless."

Even if visitors think the Encore delivers on that promise, however, Wynn will have to keep prices low to keep people booking its 2,034 suites. That's because while Wynn is doing well, Las Vegas is not.

MGM Mirage Inc., which owns 10 casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, has laid off about 3,200 workers here since October 2007. Harrah's Entertainment has cut 1,800 workers since January. And Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Lerner told investors in a note on Monday that he is tracking more delayed projects in Las Vegas than ever before.

Wynn said he views layoffs as an absolute last option, and he's willing to drop his room prices to keep people in the building and his employees working.

"If I lay off employees, I cause a ripple effect of insecurity and fear that is much, much more difficult to overcome than is raising the price when business is good," Wynn said.

The 5,000 new jobs at the resort, while 300 short of the number announced in July, were eagerly awaited, even though locals have seen many swings in their city's economy before. Some 100,000 people applied for the positions, company officials have said.

Hit hard by foreclosures and the mortgage crisis, Las Vegas reported an unemployment rate of 7.9 percent in November, up from 7.6 percent in October and above the November national average of 6.7 percent.

And Encore's opening is likely to be the only bright spot for a while.

Directly across the street is the former site of New Frontier hotel-casino, an empty lot where a stalled project modeled after The Plaza hotel in New York has yet to rise. Next to that sits Boyd Gaming Corp.'s stalled $4.8 billion Echelon project.

"It's going to bring some optimism, I think," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at UNLV. "Granted, it's not something that anybody could do."

Schwartz said some visitors will come just because it's Wynn's hotel, and others will come because of buzz generated for the casino.

In addition to the jobs, Encore will likely contribute significantly to the economy through taxes on gross casino revenues, room taxes and entertainment tax, Schwartz said.

But Encore's opening is sending unwelcome ripples through the gambling market in Las Vegas. Wynn, known for shaking up Sin City one casino at a time, is doing it this time by lowering rates so he can keep visitors coming in the short term.

He said he's booked 60,000 room-nights since dropping rates last week at Encore and Wynn Las Vegas next door. Those guests, most of whom signed up for visits next month, would have probably gone to properties down the street instead, he said.

"I want Encore filled and Wynn, and I'm sorry to everybody," Wynn said.

He said he would raise rates as the rooms fill up, and hope to get as close to 95 percent as possible. Five percent of rooms, he said, are usually saved for high rollers.

Weeknights, a standard 700-square-foot suite at Encore is going for $159 in January, according to Encore's Web site, with higher prices on weekends. That's down from rates easily $200 or more.

Natural light flows onto the 72,000-square-foot casino floor from a large glass-covered atrium and windows overlooking the pool. One restaurant's wall is decorated with a large Asian dragon made from 90,000 Swarovski crystals, while another displays Frank Sinatra's 1953 Oscar at its entrance. The nightclub, XS, opens with large glass doors to an outdoor pool with its own bar, blackjack tables and cabanas.

But all year, Vegas visitors have been spending less money, no matter how tempting the offerings. Analysts who study the industry say the gambling market may not have hit bottom yet.

"It has taken time for the full impact of the financial crisis to become apparent due to pre-planned travel," Celeste Brown of Morgan Stanley Research wrote in a note Friday to investors.

Casinos are typically more willing to sacrifice room rates than non-gambling hotels in order to get people in the door, figuring they'll still make money from customers gambling, eating and entertaining themselves inside.

But Wynn says the company's room rates are a big part of his profits, and lowering them hurts.

Brown said the rate cuts could pressure other casinos to follow suit and further depress the whole market's profitability.

"If I ever set a price, then the market has to go off that," Wynn said. "When we did this the other day, we repriced the whole city."

Wynn's fortunes are strongly tied to Las Vegas, despite the company's investment in a $700 million Encore now being built in the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau, analyst Robert LaFleur wrote in a recent note to investors.

Wynn expected thousands to jam the entrances to the casinos on Monday night, as some of his best customers ceremoniously pull the first slots and play the first hand at each machine and table with $2 million in house money.

If they win — at prices of $1,000 to $25,000 — they get to keep the winnings, but Wynn says he expects they'll play some more no matter what happens.

"I've never met a gambler that would win a bet and retire from gambling," he said.
By OSKAR GARCIA

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When the fifth season of “High Stakes Poker” begins on cable channel GSN, a debut tentatively scheduled for March 1, poker fans will again see all of the signature fixtures that have made the show so popular.

It will again feature poker’s most recognizable live-game players, stalwarts such as Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth.

It will also include the czars of Internet poker’s “nosebleed” stakes who have generated huge followings under their online screen handles, such as Tom Dwan (“durrrr”) and Ilari Sahamies (“Ziigmund.”)

Don’t forget the bundled $50,000 bricks of U.S. currency — in play along with high-denomination poker chips — that give the show extra flair, or the verbal jousting that regularly occurs to accompany monster-size pots.

What viewers won’t see, though, is poker pro Phil Laak polishing off a plate of sushi during a break in the action as he holds forth on a play scheduled to open on London’s West End in the spring — and, believe it or not, how it relates to his view of the contemporary poker scene.

The production, “Grasses of a Thousand Colours,” will be directed by Andre Gregory and was written by his longtime collaborator Wallace Shawn, the accomplished actor and playwright.

Or, as Laak put it: “You remember the guy in ‘The Princess Bride’ who goes, ‘Inconceivable!’ ”

The play will keep Laak’s girlfriend, Jennifer Tilly, busy in London, Laak said, during a period that overlaps the World Poker Tour Championship, a $25,000-entry tournament at the Bellagio that Laak has circled on his calendar.

“I can’t wait to see the play, but it looks like Jennifer and I won’t be in the same town for a while,” Laak said on the “High Stakes Poker” set at the Golden Nugget this past weekend. “I would never miss the 25K event at the Bellagio.”

Laak also considers any taping of “High Stakes Poker” one of the few “must-play” events on the poker circuit, having competed in every season but the first.

The show, which portrays a high-stakes cash poker game rather than a tournament, made its debut on GSN (Cox cable channel 344) in January 2006 after a taping at the Golden Nugget in November 2005. Subsequent seasons were taped at the Palms and at the South Point (twice).

As in previous seasons, about 27 hours of play from the weekend will be divided into a series of hourlong episodes.

“It’s such a ‘sick’ honor to be invited to this thing,” Laak said. “To poker’s credit, there are so many tournaments with really cool structures now that you don’t have to travel too much if you don’t want to. For me, I’ve been sticking mostly to the West Coast or London, and that’s enough to keep me busy.

“You can’t get a game like this too often.”

Players are required to sit down at the table with at least $200,000, although some have opted to bring as much as $1 million to the “High Stakes” game.

The appeal of the show is easy to explain, Laak said: All poker fans know how to play no-limit Texas hold ’em, and many believe they have what it takes (with the exception of a ready supply of bricks of $100 bills, perhaps) to beat the best at their own game.

“This is phenomenal for poker,” Laak said. “You might see some funny stuff happening in the hands, stuff that looks ‘sick’ on TV, but it actually has game theory behind it, which the average viewer might miss out on. So an average viewer might think, ‘Oh, I could do that.’ You know, they would have called the bet in that spot.”

Laak is far from the only player who places a premium on making it to “High Stakes Poker,” according to Kevin Belinkoff, a consultant on the show who has been involved since its creation.

The roster of players varies somewhat by season, but it’s safe to say there are more players willing to compete than spots in the game, Belinkoff said.

“We get requests from everywhere,” Belinkoff said. “We try to get a nice mix of personalities and players of different ages and levels of experience that tell the story of what’s going on.

“If you’re a brash, obnoxious guy, we’ll find a place for you. But we might not put you with some other brash, obnoxious guys if we think that would blow up the table. Some guys are quiet, and there’s a place for them, too.”

Although the heart of the order consists of high-stakes professional poker players, the show’s executives round out the lineup with a selection of personalities from the entertainment industry.

A poker subculture thrives in Hollywood circles, said Sam Simon, the acclaimed TV producer who was competing on “High Stakes Poker” for the first time this weekend.

Simon, known for his work on “The Simpsons,” “Taxi” and “Cheers,” calls himself a recreational poker player and participates in a $5 and $10 no-limit hold ’em home game a couple of times a week.

Among his peers in show business, Simon gave high marks to Tobey Maguire and Hank Azaria for poker acumen.

“There are a few legendary home games in Hollywood, and the poker boom after Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker (in 2003) reverberated in Hollywood, too,” Simon said. “Then, you have people with a lot of money and a lot of time, so you’ve got some big games that go in Hollywood.

“I think it’s probably the same as it is all over America. It’s just that some of these guys happen to have bigger bankrolls.”
By Jeff Haney