Overtime negotiations yielded contract agreements today for maids, food-service workers and bartenders at all but two downtown Las Vegas hotel-casinos.

Informational pickets went up briefly at the El Cortez, Las Vegas Club, Horseshoe, Castaways, Golden Gate and Western casinos. But negotiators stopped the clock and kept talking past a midnight deadline without calling a threatened strike by some 5,000 workers.

Representatives of some downtown operators had said the properties were losing money and can't afford existing union contracts. Workers said they need employers to contribute more for expensive healthcare coverage.

Talks were suspended for workers at the Western Hotel & Bingo Park after management announced that the 109-room hotel will close after Sept. 1, said John Wilhelm, chief negotiator for the Culinary Union.

The reason for the closing is simple, hotel attorney Ike Lawrence Epstein said: "The economics ... don't work."

Talks continued today with the Golden Gate hotel-casino, the oldest in the city. The union covers about 165 of the hotel's 330 workers, Wilhelm said.

Tentative agreements had been reached late yesterday with Main Street Station, Fitzgeralds, Fremont, Four Queens and Jerry's Nugget, said Glen Arnodo, union political director. An agreement with the Plaza was reached early today.

Wilhelm said agreements were "substantially the same" for the downtown, off-Strip hotels, but differed in salary and benefit provisions from agreements reached last month with major Strip hotels.

A strike would have been the biggest in Nevada since 17,000 Culinary Union members walked out in Las Vegas 17 years ago. Casinos had said they intended to hire 4,625 nonunion workers if a strike were called.