Elizabeth De Las Casas deals blackjack in the Pussycat Dolls Casino inside Caesars Palace. Photos by Craig L. Moran. Terry Taylor, left, and Ruben Santana, both of San Francisco, play roulette during their visit to the Pussycat Dolls Casino recently. Go-go dancers in the middle of the casino pit keep gamblers entertained at the Pussycat Dolls Casino.

Terry Taylor, 58, was up past his 8 p.m. bedtime.

But it was for a good reason. Or so he said, and he wasn't referring to the roulette table where he sat in Caesars Palace on a recent Tuesday.

At about 8:55 p.m., his reason for losing sleep danced toward him and friend Ruben Santana, with their bosoms spilling out of tight bodices, rears barely covered by the shortest of shorts, jaunty leather caps dangling off their heads. They danced around the casino for a few minutes before stopping in front of tables with their name emblazoned across felt: the Pussycat Dolls.

Well, not the real Dolls; they were dealers in Caesars' new Pussycat Dolls Casino. But Taylor and Santana didn't care to make the distinction. Instead, they were eager to play some roulette, if they could look away from the go-go dancers and scantily clad dealer-dolls.

The casino, a section of themed floor space next to the Pussycat Dolls Lounge and adjacent to the sports book, opened in February. Twelve table games, along with four slot machines, two go-go dancer cages, and a lighting and sound system to rival any nightclub, are sandwiched between Elton John's gift shop and a wall devoted to Pussycat Dolls T-shirts, mugs, caps and other memorabilia.

With dance music pulsing a steady beat, colored lighting and leopard print carpet setting a party mood, the casino feels more like a club without walls than a gambling pit.

And that's the point, said Gary Selesner, president of Caesars Palace and the guy who came up with the whole casino idea.

"We were going for a club without walls," Selesner said. "We wanted to extend the club ambience into that section for obvious reasons. I think we largely achieved that."

The dealers come out a few minutes before 9 p.m. Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, dancing around the pit to the Pussycat Dolls' hit "Don't Cha." On this Tuesday, the casino area was packed within 15 minutes of opening. The crowd of mostly men stood staring, obviously enthralled with the eye candy. Some stood back watching the show and taking pictures with their cell phones, while other men crowded the tables where betting minimums were $10, $25, $50 and $100.

With his stare fixed on a blackjack dealer, Texan Jess Madison put down a $100 bill for chips and took a seat.

"Who was the genius who thought of this?" he asked no one in particular.

Before, the area was a corridor between the Forum Shops and the resort's casino. It was heavily trafficked, Selesner said, but the slot machines there were barely given a look by those who passed.

"It didn't take a genius to look at the area and the traffic flow issues and realize that table games would do better there than slot machines," said Selesner, who worked on the idea with a team of people, including Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin.

The casino carries the Pussycat Dolls theme all the way down to the table legs, complete with fishnet tights and stiletto heels. The oval-shaped pit features two bronzed cages where go-go dancers slither and dance until 2 a.m.

The results have been "very gratifying," Selesner said. "The retail is selling above our expectations and the casino itself has become the busiest pit we have when it's open."

Plans are in the works to expand the casino and its hours. It will open during the day for special events such as the upcoming March Madness, he added.

Santana saw an ad for the casino in a hotel magazine and was enticed into it by "the clothes, the women, the way they put it all together," he said.

"I saw it started at 9 p.m. and said we need to be down here five minutes before everyone else," Santana said.

With a smile on his face, Taylor said he fully expected to play -- and lose -- more money than he usually would.

After all, he was here at the Pussycats Dolls' casino more for the "atmosphere" than for actually winning at roulette.

"If you're going to lose it, you might as well lose it to a pretty girl," Santana said.