No harm, no foul. That's more or less the company line coming out of One Harrah's Court, after Clark County reluctantly released a document detailing 34 fly-by-night remodeling jobs during the 2000-07 period. But following procedures codified in law apparently doesn't matter when the jobs are "minor in nature" (per Harrah's official excuse). Besides, doing this work on the sly saved Harrah's 34 permit fees. Thrift, Horatio!

Whether we're talking about MGM Mirage corner-cutting on security at Luxor or Harrah's Entertainment not pulling permits and shutting down its Seven Stars Lounge, one does well to remember that these are still comfortably profitable companies ($1.7 billion last year, in MGM's case). So it's not a question of keeping the wolf from the door.

"Juice" in action. Meanwhile, Boyd Gaming is in the hot seat concerning an incident at The Orleans that resulted in two grisly deaths. (The company says it doesn't want to "relive the tragedy"; neither do the victims' families, I'm sure, but they have to do so on a daily basis.)

While the issue was initially OSHA's $185,000 fine for safety violations, it soon transpired that three members of Gov. Jim Gibbons' administration, including one of his chief advisers, had "big-footed" the matter. Their unprecedented intercession on behalf of Boyd was considered so egregious that Boyd's own safety manager quit in outrage, as did an OSHA investigator. (Gibbons is a longtime beneficiary of Boyd's largesse.) It also resulted in a watered-down settlement. Boyd says top state officials got into the act because "They wanted to address their relationship with the casino industry." Huh?

It's a complicated story, involving evidence of unresponsiveness to safety issues by Boyd and a drawn-out, fits-and-starts investigation by OSHA. The latter acceded to a settlement which ties its hands, forbidding it from conducting regular inspections of Boyd properties for two years. Also, OSHA will provide Boyd employees with safety training -- on the taxpayers' dime.

Now the Nevada Attorney General's office is looking into whether Business & Industry Dept. boss Mendy Elliott -- or other state officials -- had a thumb on the scales of justice. The attorney for the Industrial Relations Division says Elliott and another high-ranking state official were involved at Boyds' request; Boyd hotly denies the allegation. It also disputes that $45,000 donated to Gibbons' gubernatorial campaign (plus $40,000 across his five congressional races) constitutes a "major" contribution. In today's politics, maybe not, but it's scarcely chump change.

Perhaps Boyd also has a reasonable explanation for why it didn't assuage the concerns of its safety manager, especially after receiving comparable OSHA citations at two other casinos. As for OSHA, it finds itself in a bind whereby it its initial fine is more like an opening bid. If the company accepts it, all well and good. If not, OSHA is faced with a protracted appeal process in which its citation may be reversed -- and during which the cited problem goes unremediated. So it often bargains for a reduced fine and immediate action. In the case of the Orleans incident, though, it looks like OSHA had some non-kosher "encouragement" to play Let's Make a Deal.

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