London's Times has sent a correspondent to Vegas. He succeeds in getting Sheldon Adelson, Steve Wynn and Alan Feldman to snark at each other and (secondarily) each other's new casino-resort projects. What reporter John Arlidge singularly fails to do is get basic facts right.

For instance, the Kerzner International/Dubai World project at the north end of the Strip is not a rival to MGM Mirage (as implied), seeing as how MGM is the lead investor and creative driving force on that mega-development. Nor does Arlidge blush from flogging the old myth that "Bugsy Siegel and his henchmen drove ... to a dusty railroad stop in Nevada 60 years ago and announced plans to build the Flamingo."

First off, the Flamingo was the brainchild of Billy Wilkerson (John L. Smith has the straight dope). Second, it would have been a meat trick for Bugsy to drive out here "60 years ago" (i.e., 1948), seeing as he'd died the previous year -- not to mention that his mythic road trip had taken place several years before that.

Las Vegas leads America in many categories and, alas, "take the money and run" journalism is one of them.

Where there's smoke ... there's no construction, at least as far as the "smoking lounges" mandated for Atlantic City's casinos are concerned. Critics may call them "gas chambers" or "choking boxes" but nobody's built one yet. Some of the blame appears to fall upon a tortoise-powered review process by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and some upon the casinos themselves -- Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Marina, Atlantic City Hilton and Borgata are reported to be the biggest laggards.

I suppose if you're an inveterate smoker, Jersey's '75/25' rule, which banishes cigarettes, cigars, etc. to one-fourth of the gambling floor, is that much less reason to bypass New York racinos and Pennsylvania slot parlors in favor of the Boardwalk. By the very same token, if the smell of smoke offends your nostrils, it's strong motivation to snub Atlantic City in favor of newer, inherently less smoke-embedded gambling halls elsewhere.

Luxury condos in A.C.? I know, I know ... it didn't work out quite as planned in Las Vegas, but one plucky developer has his sights set on a 50-story condo-hotel project for the Boardwalk (above). The "hotel" half of the equation is the key element, especially since Atlantic City has long been caught in a Scylla/Charybdis predicament: It needs more hotel rooms to drive the critical mass of visitors needed to make it a "destination" market and yet it also needs the multi-night visitors necessary to justify building those extra hotel rooms. At a mere (!) $300 million and with only one imminent competitor, developer Christopher DiGeorge's initiative looks like a risk worth taking.