The 19 roadside ads you’ve been seeing have the come-on line, "Get $500 to show us your package." Interested parties are encouraged to call 702-GEARBOX.
And what is it that earns you 500 clams? Engaging in on-camera "self-abuse," as it used to be called, and achieving climax. If you don't quite get over the hump, so to speak, your reward is only $250. Video loops of straight porn are provided to help you reach the $500 level. (This is, we assure you, an extremely sanitized description of business as usual at Bait & Tackle.)
Women, apparently, are in shorter supply than men: The former are reportedly invited to the studio as soon as they're approved, while the men's waiting list is more than 100 long. That's as much as we could find out what the women do.
Men who agree to perform homosexual acts on camera can make anything from $1,000 to $4,000, depending on what they’re willing to do for their prospective online audience.
Bait & Tackle cohabits the same Tropicana Avenue and Arville Road intersection dominated by the Déjà Vu Adult Emporium. The business is the brainchild of entrepreneur Justin Clouse, a USC alumnus who decided to turn his gay-porn addiction into a money-making endeavor that would "help bring porn out of the closet." The former Trojan told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that his 10 Bait & Tackle-affiliated Web sites have 5,000 subscribers who pay as much as $30/month.
Las Vegas’ economic slump has stimulated business, resulting in a lengthy backlog of men willing to queue up, strip down, and pleasure themselves for Clouse’s cameras. The Las Vegas Review-Journal chronicled one unemployed construction worker’s Bait & Tackle odyssey. The R-J also filmed a not-for-the-prudish video chronicle of the event. (Warning: There's brief nudity.)
