TV

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Take the business drama of "The Restaurant" or "The Apprentice," mix in the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, and you have "The Casino," which FOX hopes will be its next reality hit (even without snarky British judges or plastic surgery).

Starting Monday, June 14, reality-television titan Mark Burnett (the man behind the above shows, and, of course, "Survivor") and his team -- co-executive producers Jamie Bruce and Conrad Riggs, and supervising producer Kevin Harris -- throw open the doors of the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas, right next to the Fremont Street Experience, to show what happens when a couple of Internet millionaires decide to gamble it all in Sin City.

For 13 episodes, "The Casino" follows Tim Poster and Tom Breitling, who founded Travelscape.com -- then sold it to Expedia, pocketing millions -- as they take over the Nugget, along with a sister property in Laughlin, Nev. Their dream is to reproduce the classic Vegas experience.

"It's almost an oasis in the middle of downtown," Bruce says of the Golden Nugget. "It's a very upscale hotel, but it's a gaming hall more than a casino. It doesn't have the shopping mall. It's a real gambling haven. Tim and Tom are upgrading it. They want to be the force behind invigorating downtown."

Open 24/7, with about 3,000 employees, the Nugget is a world unto itself, but unlike "The Restaurant," the employees and owners don't provide all the drama.

"The drama is in the guests," Bruce says, "and in the casino. Some people, on television, have lost a couple hundred thousand of their own money.

"At the beginning of the show, I was very worried. I was saying, 'I hope the guests are going to come and be into it.' I quickly realized that, A, people who come to Vegas want to have fun; and, B, people want to be on TV. The combination of those two is explosive."