UPDATE 5-US court allows casino vote that may boost Obama

(Adds newspaper endorsement, paragraphs 15-16)

By Adam Tanner

LAS VEGAS, Jan 17 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday allowed Nevada Democrats to hold presidential voting in casino hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, potentially helping Sen. Barack Obama in the next round of the campaign on Saturday.

For the first time, Nevada Democrats planned to set up nine locations for Saturday's vote so casino shift workers, who are largely represented by a union that endorsed Obama, could attend caucuses and vote for a presidential candidate.

A teachers' group filed a lawsuit saying the fact that only workers around the casinos could vote at their workplaces was unfair, but Judge James Mahan of the U.S. District Court for Nevada rejected their request for an injunction.

"The Democrats can set up their own rules just as the Republicans can," the judge said. "It is not up to some federal judge to come along and say,'I don't like that.'"

A large turnout of casino workers could boost Obama, of Illinois, in his tight race against New York Sen. Hillary Clinton because he is backed by the Culinary Union, the state's most influential labor group representing some 60,000 hotel service workers.

"I think the judge was clear that you can't change the rules ... days before the caucus, and any alterations would have disenfranchised the maids, dishwashers, bellhops who work on the Strip," Obama said in San Francisco.

The Clinton campaign expressed disappointment.

"Make no mistake -- the current system that inhibits some shift workers from being able to participate, while allowing others to do so, would seem to benefit other campaigns," her campaign said in a statement. "More importantly it is unfair."

Other Nevadans will meet in locations near their homes to vote in the next contest in a series of state-by-state competitions to choose Democratic and Republican nominees.

Similar to Iowa, the voting in Nevada is done in caucuses, or gatherings, rather than by individual polling.

"The Obama campaign got the endorsement of the Culinary Union so I think that will help them at the at-large (casino) precincts," said Jill Derby, chair of the Nevada State Democratic Party.

UNION MUSCLE

According to a Las Vegas Review-Journal poll to be published in the paper on Friday, Clinton leads Obama by nine points in Nevada. It did not release the margin of error.

The Culinary Union and its activists are talking to members in workers' cafeterias in the famed Strip hotels and knocking on doors urging its members to turn out for Obama.