His Harrah's Entertainment empire crumbling beneath his feet, CEO Gary Loveman has had to give up on Kansas. By aborting a 40/60 joint venture, Harrah's should get back $10 million of a $25 million deposit. (At the time Harrah's was awarded the concession, it looked as though it could be financed out of the company's revolving line of credit. Evidently I was wrong and lenders understandably got cold feet.)

Rick Alm has some particularly strong thoughts on the matter at www.LuckyNumbers.KansasCity.com (our blogging software is not MS Word friendly -- and guess what operating system the G2E press room employs). Meanwhile, Sumner County gets to push the "re-set to zero" button, as the whole process must be started over from Square One.

It looked nice on the drawing board: Harrah's Kansas, R.I.P.

Being required to spend $225 million-$535 million on a casino in Kansas seems awfully steep in the present economy. Then again, Station Casinos has lavished just shy of $1.6 billion on its last two locals casinos -- in a far, far more competitive market.

MGM Mirage, Las Vegas Sands and others ultimately deemed Kansas too rich for their blood. Barring a downward renegotiation of the cost of entry, Kansas is unlikely to lure any comparably big fish. But none of that excuses Harrah's cut-and-run strategy.

Harrah's knew what it was going to have to spend (and, in case it forgot, it received a letter from the Kansas Lottery with a stern reminder). It pursued the Sumner County concession through to the end. It could have bailed out, as others did, but decided to stay the course.

And now, having taken the ball the length of the field, Harrah's has coughed it up on the one-yard line. Meaning it may be another year before its replacement is OK'd. An apology is owed to the people of Kansas.

Update: An Associated Press story parses the language of Harrah's withdrawal and raises the prospect it may be a negotiating tactic. Of particular note is a phrase saying it was impossible "to proceed with the project as planned" (emphasis added). Which does sound like somebody's laying the groundwork for a downsized Harrah's Sumner 2.0.

However, this still restarts the clock on the application process and not only inconveniences the good people of Mulvane, KS, it also raises the prospect that the Kansas Lottery will go with one of the rival bids sited in nearby Wellington. Besides, few would fault the Lottery for approaching Harrah's with wariness a second time around.