LAS VEGAS –  An argument over a cover charge led to a nightclub shooting early Monday on the Las Vegas Strip that left one patron dead when he tried to subdue the gunman and two employees wounded, police said.

A man opened fire at 5:45 a.m. wounding a manager and a guard at Drai's After Hours, a club at Bally's Hotel-Casino, police Sgt. John Sheahan said. Another guard might have been injured.

Sheahan said the nightclub was open at the time and the shooter was believed to have acted alone. He was hospitalized with unspecified injuries.

Sheahan said the male patron was shot and killed trying to subdue the gunman as people ran from the club.

"The person is in custody. The weapon is in custody," Sheahan said. No names have been released.

Authorities said the gunman paid an unspecified cover charge then demanded his money back before the shooting began.

The club is located on the lower level of Bally's.

Gambling continued in the casino after the shooting, but yellow crime scene tape stretched around several banks of slot machines outside the nightclub. Debris littered the floor.

The Strip was the scene of a dramatic shooting and explosion last winter. Authorities say verbal sparring erupted into a shooting, chase and crash that left three people dead in February. A death penalty trial is set for Dec. 2 against a man who once bragged about his lifestyle as a pimp.