(FORTUNE Magazine) – Quick: Name the three biggest gambling cities in Nevada. Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe, right? Wanna bet? You'd lose. No. 3 is Laughlin (pop. 5,000), an old-fashioned Mojave Desert town on the banks of the Colorado River. It attracted nearly four million tourists and rang up $346 million in gaming revenues in 1989, knocking Lake Tahoe into fourth place. Laughlin -- named for Las Vegas emigre and former nightclub owner Don Laughlin, now 59, who bought a bankrupt bar there in 1966 -- has few services: It shares a general aviation airport with Bullhead City, Arizona, across the river, and borrows police and firefighters from Las Vegas, 90 miles north. But with the gala August opening of the $190 million Flamingo Hilton Laughlin, the town now boasts 7,200 hotel rooms -- average price: $30 per night -- and nine casinos, including Harrah's, Circus Circus, Ramada, Golden Nugget, and the Riverside Resort, Don Laughlin's place. Gaming giants come to Laughlin in pursuit of the gallivanting gray-bird market: 71% of the town's visitors are over 50, and nearly half are retired. To cater to these folks, the Flamingo Hilton guarantees that 80% of its slot machines have stools. Low rollers eat up Laughlin's folksy atmosphere, which they compare to the old, pre-glitz Las Vegas. Says Ted Henry, 42, a vice president of a Winnebago subsidiary and a frequent visitor: ''You almost don't mind giving your money to them.''