Riverboat Casino Belle of Boom Town

Monolithic as the Sphinx, the Colorado Belle squats in the desert smack on the bank of the Colorado River. It looks just like a riverboat, but at 600 feet long it is way too big to be a real one.

As many Southern Californians have already discovered, however, the Belle is no mirage. It is a hotel-casino in the guise of a three-deck Mississippi River paddle-wheeler, with 200 guest rooms on board and another 1,038 ashore in two six-story towers.

Just as a curiosity, the “boat” is shaping up as the area’s biggest draw for rubbernecking tourists since the London Bridge was transplanted to Lake Havasu, downstream in the same desert in 1971.

The Belle is separated from the land by a moat that enhances the appearance that it actually is floating on the river. Its giant paddle-wheel seems to move at night thanks to another artifice, strobe lights.

The Colorado Belle is “the biggest boat built in the desert since Noah’s Ark,” its owners are fond of saying.

But, at a cost of $80 million, this new landmark was built to be more than a curiosity in the desert: It was designed to rake in gambling profits. Its heart is a 64,000-square-foot casino, loaded with slot machines and gambling tables.

The attraction was opened officially July 1 by its creator, Circus Circus Enterprises. The company, named for its “big top” theme casino in Las Vegas, has parlayed a retailing approach and low prices on food and rooms into rock-steady earnings that are the envy of many a competitor.

Laughlin--a booming town that threatens to overtake Lake Tahoe as the state’s third biggest in gambling--is farther in style than in distance from Las Vegas, the great gaming mecca 90 miles to the north.

On the Las Vegas Strip, an impersonal casino atmosphere is common, no matter how crowded. Here, it is good old homespun.

The difference is personified by Bill Paulos, general manager of the Belle, the latest addition to a swiftly growing cluster of casinos across the river from Bullhead City, Ariz.

A gregarious man, Paulos howdies and good mornings his way among the employees and customers at the slot machines and card tables. His informal dress and manner match the atmosphere of the Belle and its sister hotel-casino next door, the Edgewater, which he also manages and which Circus Circus bought in 1983 and expanded.

The jeans and Western hats spell desert casual. Middle-class folks may be seen bright and early in the morning, cranking slot machine handles with the same cheerful carelessness as if they were working backyard ice cream churns. Casino profits come mostly from the slots rather than craps and card tables.

Here, employees seem more sincerely friendly than in the purlieus of the high rollers “up north” on the Strip, and the pace is unhurried.

Some of the maintenance workers and other casino employees are retired people “who want something to do for eight hours a day,” Paulos notes, adding that he regards them as among the most reliable of his forces.

The demographics of the customers make the casinos here distinctive. Although both Las Vegas and Laughlin draw heavily from the Los Angeles area, which is nearly 300 miles away from each, Laughlin attracts a remarkable proportion of older persons year-round. Many have recreation vehicles of all sorts, and some enjoy fishing at major lakes an easy drive away, north and south on the river.

But in Laughlin itself, there’s not much to do but stroll and gawk and gorge at the inexpensive casino buffets--and, of course, feed the slots. The casinos don’t have the big conventions of Las Vegas or expensive entertainment in big showrooms, only some modest country and Dixieland music by small combos.

In summer, a lot of young day-trippers come to water-ski on the river and try their hand in low-roller heaven.

Laughlin’s best season is winter, attracting many so-called snow birds. They are mostly retired people who have the financial means (including a winter residence or motor homes and campers) to follow the sun to such places as Phoenix, then on to Laughlin to enjoy the casinos.

William G. Bennett, Circus Circus chairman and chief executive who bought the unsuccessful, 4-year-old Las Vegas casino firm in 1974 with partner William N. Pennington and later took it public, says:

“We get a lot of senior citizens down there now, but in the wintertime, my God, it’s strictly senior citizen city. There are a lot of retired senior citizens who’ve got a few bucks.”

A typical couple draws one or two pensions plus Social Security, and most have some stocks or other investments, Bennett says.

Showing a visitor around the company’s Laughlin casinos, Paulos and Glenn W. Schaeffer, the corporation’s chief financial officer, add a sociological footnote:

A measure of the affluence of the older visitors, they say, is that they often consider their Social Security checks to be their “entertainment money.”

The Colorado Belle, as a theme casino, could be competitive in any market, whether Las Vegas or Atlantic City, Paulos maintains. Indeed, its custom decor and range of attractions--including five restaurants--project an image of luxury. Even so, its rooms rent for as little as $30 a night, and it has the cut-rate food prices that helped build Circus Circus’ prosperity.

“I just hope we didn’t make it too fancy,” Bennett says with a superstitious air.

So far, that has not been a problem. The Belle started off with operating profit of $1.98 million on revenue of $7.49 million in July, “exceeding our expectations,” Bennett said. While the firm has not reported its earnings since then, it says the same strong form has continued during the two subsequent months.

“We ran 100% occupancy this summer,” Schaeffer says, noting that this was for all 1,850 rooms of the combined Colorado Belle and Edgewater, compared to 90% overall for the town. And the company says the Edgewater’s profit continued to rise even after the Belle got into operation.

Los Angeles customers account for an average of 57% of the combined room rentals, but that goes up to 65% and higher in summer, while day visitors are largely from Arizona.

Although there is some walk-in trade, most customers make reservations. Circus Circus advertises that in Laughlin, as in Las Vegas, it will find a customer a room elsewhere if it is full.

The seven existing casinos have different types of decor, which “helps us all,” Paulos says.

The granddaddy of them all is the 660-room Riverside, which was a boarded-up relic of a motel when Don Laughlin, the town’s gambling pioneer and leading citizen, bought it 23 years ago.

The dapper entrepreneur built a new casino, expanding it over the years to its present size and adding a 400-space RV park. Laughlin, now 56, who named the unincorporated place after himself when postal authorities asked for a name in order to provide mail service, is very much in charge of his domain. He recently paid a reported $3 million to build a bridge across the Colorado near his casino and then donated it to Arizona and Nevada.

Two major new casino-hotels are under construction. Across the road from the Belle, Ramada Inns is building one with a Victorian railroad terminal theme that will be named Ramada Station. It will be the first Laughlin casino located away from the river bank. Over a rise and somewhat south of the casino cluster, Harrah’s, the gambling subsidiary of Holiday Corp., is building a Mexican-theme casino.

Paulos of the Colorado Belle passes along these tidings with apparent relish. More seems to be better, at least for a while.

“The future of Laughlin is as a destination resort,” Paulos says, “but it only has 3,300 rooms so far. We control 60% of them, as well as 37% of the gaming units (slot machines and gambling tables). The company expects the supply of rooms to rise to more than 4,000 by the end of 1988.

“The growth has to come from Southern California, but there’s no use promoting there until there are more rooms.”

While Laughlin is now a long day trip from Los Angeles by auto or bus, Paulos says the airlines seem to be getting interested in starting service.

“Within 30 months,” he predicts, with the optimism that characterizes Laughlin these days, “we’ll have 737s landing here.”