Playing Out of Pocket

He's pored over spreadsheets, working to stretch the hundreds of thousands of dollars he spends on billboard, newspaper and radio ads.

Then, shortly after 10 p.m. five nights a week, Wallace steps onto a stage he rents at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino and presents cocktail-sipping audiences with what he's been selling: the George Wallace show.

Wallace, 53, is a comedian, a friendly bear of a man who once wrote jokes for Redd Foxx. Now he draws laughs with a grumpy shtick of his own, a harangue on subjects ranging from a nephew in baggy pants -- "I wanted to kick his tail, but I didn't know where it was" -- to indulgent ministers who preach "six commandments and four do-the-best-you-cans."

But to perform his comedy, Wallace also has had to become an entrepreneur of sorts. He takes a multimillion-dollar risk by literally paying to play in Las Vegas.

In Vegas parlance, Wallace is a "four-waller," the term used when an entertainer pays for his or her stage time. It's an increasingly common arrangement that guarantees the hotel or casino rent and puts much of the marketing and production onus on the performer, unlike the more traditional contract in which the performer receives a set fee.

For the entertainer -- often an aging star or perhaps one who never made the showbiz A-list -- four-walling is a huge roll of the dice, with odds of success that make the craps tables look inviting.

Performers like Wallace, who is entering his third year at the Flamingo, can make four-walling pay if they sell enough tickets to make their rent and payroll, which for him is no small matter. Wallace oversees a staff of 14, including stagehands, light operators and even the maitre d' who seats his customers.

While some four-wallers can turn a profit, they can also lose big -- running through a bankroll in a hurry. And in the brutal economics of Las Vegas show business, even if they pay the rent, entertainers risk being tossed out if they do not bring in enough people. Casinos not only expect customers to go to the show, but also to arrive early or stay afterward -- preferably both -- and gamble.