The Incidental Tourist

[The Incidental Tourist]

Encore Player’s Club and other venues look to diversify Vegas nightlife

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Encore and Sean Christie are raising the stakes with their new Player’s Club.
Photo: Denise Truscello

Encore Player’s Club is opening this weekend, on December 19. It’s a 5,000-square-foot area carved out of a corner of Encore’s casino, surrounded by Surrender nightclub (and closed-for-the-season Encore Beach Club), Andrea’s restaurant, the VDKA bar and Society Cafe, a restaurant that closes this month to make room for a new Wynn/Encore poker room.

Encore Player’s Club has been touted as a lounge-casino mashup, “built specifically to appeal to millennials,” according to a release from the resort. You can play roulette, craps, blackjack and slots, or you can grab one of the Suzo Happ InteractivePro tables with your crew and play a variety of games for money or just for fun; the tables can also function as Internet-connected TVs. You can watch football or you can bet on football. There’s a DJ booth, so there’ll be music, but not loud, clubby music. And the music played here will be heard throughout Encore’s casino floor, something that’s already been happening from Andrea’s every night starting at 6 p.m.

So the music has to appeal to everyone, which is kind of the idea behind Encore Player’s Club, too, despite the millennial shout-outs.

“Just because something appeals to millennials—like our nightclubs, for example—doesn’t mean it can’t be good for a much wider segment,” says Sean Christie, Wynn Las Vegas vice president of operations. “Maybe we’re skewing that way because of technology, but that doesn’t mean someone in their 60s can’t be comfortable and have a drink and gamble. That’s when a space will do well.”

Targeting millennials has been the big thing for a while now, and in Las Vegas that means finding a way to get a younger visitor—one who spends most of his or her time and money in nightclubs, bars and restaurants—to roll the dice. It has been assumed this crowd doesn’t like to play slots or care to sit at blackjack tables.

“There is the idea that they’re [not gambling] because they were very young coming out of the recession and more discerning with their money,” Christie says. “But if you look at any generation, when they were 21 to 35, they probably gambled the same way and frequency these people do, there’s just a spotlight on it because they grew up with a video-game console and a [smartphone] in their hands.”

For Wynn and Encore, adding Encore Player’s Club to the mix—and putting it in this lively nightlife corner of the twin resort complex—is more about updating the casino-floor model than specifically targeting Generation Y. Christie said that area of the casino was one of the worst performers in gaming revenue in both resorts. It needed a boost, and it only makes sense to create some flow between the clubs and the hip Andrea’s.

Wynn Resorts has often been the tip of the spear when it comes to these types of innovations, but Tao Group already opened Lavo Casino Club in the early fall, an intimate venue with a VIP vibe combining traditional gaming—blackjack and craps so far, and roulette and baccarat could be on the way—with a full Italian food menu from the Lavo restaurant, bottle service and intense mixology. That venue has become a great football weekend spot, something Encore Player’s Club is aiming for as well.

Both new party spots represent the diversification of Vegas nightlife. The era of the dominant, DJ-oriented megaclub is most likely coming to a close as audiences—including the kids getting stuck with the M-word—are craving more and different experiences. Some of the new lounges, bars and clubs on the Strip will incorporate gaming and sports, others will take a greater musical focus, and most will find a way to incorporate technology in a more meaningful way.

“I know the target is millennials, but it’s not just for them,” Christie says of Encore Player’s Club, which will hold its grand opening party during CES week on January 6. “That’s the trick. It has to speak to that group so they’ll go in, but it also has to feel good for everybody else. They may not be the people who use it most.”

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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of managing editor at Las Vegas Weekly ...

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