A NICHE MARKET IN LAUGHLIN; SENIORS, FAMILIES, BUDGET GAMBLERS ARE WELCOMED WARMLY - REALLY WARMLY : IF YOU GO.

Byline: Story and photos by Eric Noland Travel Editor

Don Laughlin is a time-warp kind of guy.

The music piped through his casino is rooted in an era roughly bracketed by Roy Orbison and Brian Wilson. His classic-car exhibit features a '60 Chrysler coupe with some wicked tail fins, a metal-flake gold Mustang from '65 and a two-tone '56 Ford station wagon. His hairstyle is right out of ``The Man From U.N.C.L.E.''

And it's all fitting, really. In 1966, this man began carving out a tiny gambling settlement on the shores of the Colorado River - later consenting to have it named after him.

Despite lying within a 90-mile shadow cast by Las Vegas, the town has succeeded precisely because it has resisted change. It has been content to offer the gambler a throwback experience: Vegas of 30 or so years ago.

This is a time of grave identity crisis for Las Vegas. It seems to be taking great pains to distance itself from its past, trumpeting theme hotels that depart dramatically from the frontier ambience of old. It touts its gourmet chefs, its hoity-toity shops.

It books Broadway musicals and operatic tenors. It enthuses over the fact that its hotel guests can get to elevators without having to pass through casinos.

Laughlin - the city and the man - harbors no such pretension. This is a place that doesn't apologize for its nickel slots and $2-limit black jack. It is proud of its $3.99 breakfast buffets and sloppy Western barbecues. For entertainment, it books the Kingston Trio (Ramada Express, mid-July) and Willie Nelson (Riverside, Aug. 14).

This is a place where elderly snowbirds descend en masse in winter - that sound isn't a great flapping of wings, it's the groan of RV engines gearing down. The seniors are replaced in summer by river-rat families - also packed thickly into RVs.

And no one is the least bit self-conscious about it. In Laughlin, you don't blink when you see patrons crossing the casino in swimsuits and reef sandals, lugging ice chests. In fact, in terms of male attire, this has got to be the tank top capital of the Western world.

``It's more of a down-home atmosphere,'' Laughlin, 68, said the other day from behind the desk of his spacious office at his Riverside Resort Hotel & Casino. ``The prices are probably a third here what they are in Las Vegas.

``It's not that we don't get $100-chip play, but the people who wear a suit and tie in Las Vegas come down here, and they're in their grubbies.''

Laughlin laughed. He admitted that the city's appeal leans heavily to the retired set from October to May. He confirmed that vacationing families then take over in summer. (``They may not have much money to spend, but they stay up all night.'') He acknowledged the area's popularity with truckers, who park on the Arizona side of the river and bolt for the casino in the Riverside's free boat shuttle.

``We have a mixture of everything,'' he went on. ``We try to keep a friendly atmosphere here with our employees. I think we have the old touch that Las Vegas had 30, 40 years ago.''

In this community in the extreme southern tip of Nevada, other hotel-casino operations have followed suit.

Rooms are practically given away along its mile-plus strip of nine hotels; it's not unusual to find midweek rates under $20. Far from being discouraged, the motor-home travelers are openly courted. There are 21 RV parks in Laughlin and immediately across the river in Bullhead City, Ariz. Some 2,263 of their sites have hookups.

Inside the casinos, the atmosphere is no less inviting for visitors who aren't flush with discretionary income. Quarter, dime and even nickel slot machines produce a terrific din. Video poker is also extremely popular, while table games are often draped in tarps and idle. When demand for the table games does pick up, much of it is concentrated in blackjack games of $2 and $3 limits.

``The best thing about Laughlin, it is very inexpensive - rooms, food, the lower limits on the games,'' said Steve Bourie, who edited the 1999 ``American Casino Guide'' (Casino Vacations; $14.95) - and personally wrote the book's entry on Laughlin. ``There's more value for your money.''

And to think it all started with a flight in a small plane.

Don Laughlin, who had hustled slot-machine business as a teen-ager in his home state of Minnesota before an anti-gambling ordinance drove him to Las Vegas, was flying his private plane over a desolate stretch of the Mojave Desert and Colorado River in the early 1960s. He had just sold his 101 Club, a successful bar and gambling hall he'd established in North Las Vegas, and he was looking for new opportunities.

Laughlin spotted a boarded-up eight-room motel on the Nevada side of the river, across from Bullhead City, which had sprung up to accommodate workers building nearby Davis Dam. On a hunch, this entrepreneur decided to put $35,000 down and buy the motel and its six acres of riverfront property.

The decision was motivated not by what Laughlin saw on the ground, but what he saw from the air. At night, the lights of Phoenix were visible in the distance. So were the headlights of truckers and vacationers bound out of California on nearby Route 66. Nevada permitted gambling, and Arizona and California - long before the advent of Indian gaming - did not.

``I saw opportunity in a state-line location,'' Laughlin says now. ``I saw an opportunity for a hotel, maybe a couple hundred rooms. I didn't envision nine hotels, 50,000 people a day.''

The explosion of Laughlin's appeal was somewhat puzzling, since it couldn't boast convenience in its attempt to lure gamblers away from Las Vegas. Each destination is about a 300-mile drive from Los Angeles. From Phoenix, the drive to Las Vegas is only 19 miles shorter than the one to Laughlin.

Maybe it's that river. It flows by reassuringly, perhaps serving as a metaphor for gamblers who have seen their money drift away but would like to think fresh prosperity will be borne by the next current.

The hotels along this stretch position their bars and restaurants to overlook the river, and a river walk connects many of them (although some greedy hotels interrupt the foot traffic by forcing walkers to detour through their casinos). Water taxis work the route, making stops at all the hotel boat docks; fare: $2.

The river also provides relief from Laughlin's legendary heat.

The Earth, as it spins on its axis, lurches a few hundred miles closer to the sun, as if tugged by a magnet, whenever Laughlin comes around.

Or at least it seems that way. In summer, the temperature is routinely in the 110s, and the recorded high is 126.

But visitors here don't seem to mind. They head for the water. It's not unusual to see hotel guests take lawn chairs into the river shallows, choosing depth in direct proportion to the height of the thermometer reading.

Speed boats also ply the river, but no one in his right mind attempts to water ski here. That's because the traffic kicks up a chop that would make the Irish Sea, by comparison, look like glass. There are tour boats, water taxis and, of course, the current rage of river recreation: personal watercraft.

Jet Skis, Sea Doos and their ilk tear up and down the river, generating an aural assault that can best be characterized as an armada of water-bound leaf blowers.

It can be treacherous out there. The thrill of a personal watercraft is derived from careening through the wake of another vessel, which means making sharp turns at high speed, often without warning. And those motorized insects aren't equipped with side-view mirrors.

If you're tempted to give one a whirl, they rent for just under $50 an hour at several locations along the river walk. One rental shack, across from the Regency Casino, has a list of 19 regulations for anyone hopping aboard. But most of the rules seem to be broken with impunity - particularly the ones about wave jumping, reckless use and maintaining a distance of at least 100 feet from other craft.

As for the insistence that riders not be under the influence of alcohol, well, you don't want to know. Besides, a large sign on the very side of the rental shack screams ``Last Stop for Budweiser'' - an ad for the Regency bar just across the sidewalk.

When the river toys are put aside for the day, the casinos await, with air-conditioning systems that seem to puff against the sweltering heat 24 hours a day. The Flamingo Hilton, in fact, entices people who stroll the river walk by keeping two of its casino doors swung wide open; the blast of cool air is irresistible.

For those who don't want to gamble nonstop - or for those who are too young to gamble at all - Laughlin boasts numerous diversions on dry land.

Let Las Vegas have its various themes. This place has one, too: suburban shopping mall.

The Riverside recently opened a 34-lane bowling alley to go with its six-screen movie theater complex. It also launched a supervised day-care center, where parents may drop their little ones (at $5 per head per hour) and be assured that the kids will be mesmerized by Nintendo, Skeeball and Disney movies while the parents, drawn to a different kind of recreation, delight in dealers having to hit on a soft 17.

Older travelers can find plenty to do as well. The Ramada Express seems to target them specifically, presenting a multifaceted promotion called ``Back to the 1940's.'' It includes big-band music and dance programs, exhibits devoted to World War II and a free multimedia show titled ``On the Wings of Eagles, A Tribute to American Heroes.''

At the Flamingo Hilton recently, the evening entertainment in the Vegas-style showroom was a fellow doing a Jimmy Durante impersonation. But not the gravel-voiced act of the latter years. This was a young Durante, delivering song, dance and one-liners right out of the vaudeville days. Most of the crowd appeared qualified to vouch for the authenticity of the portrayal.

At the Riverside, the auto exhibit is another popular stop for older patrons. One such visitor paused by a 1922 Model-T Depot Hack with wood-spoke wheels and exclaimed, ``Oh, yes, my father had one of these. You had to crank it (manually) to start it.''

Can this area tap its niche market for continued expansion? The founder isn't sure. ``I don't think we'll see the boomtown-type of growth that we've seen,'' said Don Laughlin, citing burgeoning Indian casinos in both California and Arizona.

According to Nevada's Gaming Control Board, Laughlin's casinos have experienced a relatively flat gaming win over the last couple of years. Casino gambling revenues were down 5 percent for fiscal '97 and were down .04 percent for fiscal '98 (a period that ended in June).

That means the inducements for gamblers are sure to be stepped up ever more: cash giveaways, car giveaways, club awards. Plus, of course, the inexpensive food, drink, rooms and attractions that have always been its hallmark.

Optimism for the area maintaining its health is strong. ``The whole Southwest is booming. We're getting some of that,'' said Don Laughlin, whose property has climbed from 104 rooms in '75 to its current 1,401.

It might not be wise to underestimate this man . . . or the town named for him.

Some 35 years ago, he looked down on a forbidding stretch of river, then populated primarily by gnats and black flies, and envisioned a modest gambling operation aimed at fishermen, truckers, river's-edge campers. That site ballooned into one of the fastest-growing communities in Nevada.

There's nothing to say it won't maintain its appeal - especially if it keeps striking a nostalgic chord with the gamblers of today.

GETTING THERE: Laughlin lies along the Colorado River in the extreme southern tip of Nevada, about 20 miles due north of Needles. The drive from Los Angeles, via interstates 10, 15 and 40, is a little over 300 miles. No airlines offer direct service from Southern California toA the small airport across the river in Bullhead City, Ariz., but you can connect through Phoenix.

GETTING AROUND: The nine hotel-casinos of Laughlin's gambling strip are concentrated in a mile-plus stretch of Casino Drive. Unlike Las Vegas, vehicle traffic tends to be light - because so many people use water taxis ($2 one way, $3 round trip) or walk along a river walk that connects several of the casinos.

LODGING: It's possible to find midweek rates under $20, but generally rooms go for $20 and up from Sunday through Thursday, at least double that on weekends. Of Laughlin's nine major hotels, all but the Ramada Express are situated on the river bank. Probably the nicest hotel is Harrah's, which features a sandy beach and swimming cove at the river's edge (mercifully, watercraft must slow to 5 mph here). The Riverside maintains a convenient RV park directly across Casino Drive from the hotel; rates are $17 daily plus tax, $95 weekly plus tax.

TOURS, RECREATION: The Riverside, Edgewater and Flamingo hotels offer river tours of about 80 minutes for $10; Harrah's charges $13. There are a number of places to rent watercraft; expect to pay $45-$50 per hour.

DINING: The hotels have dueling inexpensive buffets, and most also feature one upscale option - often a steakhouse. Nothing was found to be exceptional on a three-day visit in mid-July.

INFORMATION: The Laughlin Visitor Information Center can offer assistance on a wide variety of inquiries, including lowest room rates. It also has information brochures available for mailing. Its Web site includes information on all lodging options. Phone: [phone] or [phone]. Web: www.visitlaughlin.com.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, Box, Map

Photo: (1--3--Color) Laughlin, Nev., maintains a distinct appeal - to low-stakes gamblers and visitors who want to frolic in the Colorado River by day, enjoy the cool of the casinos by night. Don Laughlin, left, who founded the town, targets snowbirds and families.

(4) Several hotels in Laughlin, Nev., are joined by a riAver walk, which helps minimize vehicle traffic on Casino Drive.

(5) Personal watercraft, which rent for $45 to $50 per hour, are a popular recreation option for visitors.

Eric Noland/Travel editor

Box: IF YOU GO (See text)

Map: Laughlin