AFTER CROWDED OPENINGS NEW CLUBS FACE SOME EMPTY HOURS

The worrisome question, had Las Vegas overextended itself? was asked mostly by the newer hotels. They did well, as Las Vegas always does, on weekends, when the crowds come in from Los Angeles. But on weekdays they found their rooms unbooked. One place which opened this year reportedly paid an entertainer $10,000 to cancel his engagement and had to muster the hotel help to fill up the nightclub for his successor. Worst of all, a new breed of visitor was showing up. He came to enjoy the good quarters, food and shows but---and this is where it hurt---not to gamble.

The older, established hotels had a faithful clientele of big spenders and heavy gamblers and there was no decline in their trade. Nor, in fact, was there any measureable decline in the number of people coming to Las Vegas. The trouble was that there were more places bidding for the business of those who came. The only answer, everybody agreed, was to get more people to come. But they would have to come quickly for even now seven more hotels are schedled to go up along the three miles of desert road which Las Vegas calls The Strip.