That was my spontaneous, uncensored and incredibly articulate reaction to the lead of this Detroit Free Press story on casino cheating. It begins with a Greektown Casino employee blowing her nose, then using the same hanky to snatch up $480 in nearby cash. Brain bleach! I need brain bleach!

The two salient points of the story are the brazenness (read: stupidity) of Detroit's would-be casino cheats, and the hanging-judge justice meted out by the state's casino regulators. It doesn't surprise me that Greektown seems to suffer the plurality of pilferage, if only because it impressed me as a third-tier operation when I went there last December.

Stanley Ho insists he's still relevant to Macao

Stanley's little boo-boo. All sorts of interesting information has emerged in the course of Stanley Ho's IPO. Like how the roster of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau shareholders somehow went missing. If it were any other company, you'd chalk it up to simple (if inexplicable) incompetence. But, given the seamy nature of Stanley Ho's casinos and some of his businesss associations, it's difficult to give the crafty old dinosaur the benefit of the doubt.

Even Ho's much-praised business savvy now has to be questioned. In 2006-07, when the rest of the Macao market was booming, SJM's gambling revenues fell 6%. While I once said that the rising tide in Macao was lifting all boats, it looks like Stanley Ho's caravel has sprung a leak.

Update: The SJM IPO had a "lacklustre" debut, as both institutional investors and SJM insiders couldn't give back the stuff fast enough. If you've got a little spare time, the Cotai & Macau blog has the juicy parts of the Ho IPO. Reuters calls the document "a lengthy health warning." (For instance, 2% SJM earnings growth projected for 2009-10, against 13%-22% for everybody else.)

Well, if it makes old Stanley feel better, both Galaxy Entertainment and Melco International are having crummy runs on the Hong Kong stock exchange. No surprise there, China having recently further curtailed visitaton to Macao, part of its ongoing effort to micromanage the Macanese economy, much as you or I might constantly fiddle with the burners on a stove -- now hotter, now cooler.

Junketeer A-Max, meanwhile, took a massive bath on its purchase of a half-interest in the Greek Mythology Casino. Last year's $12.5 million profit becomes this year's $154 million loss. A-Max says Greek Mythology has $295 million in "intangible assets" (a reference to those "massage services" in the basement?) that will be amortized over the next 13 years, but I'm skeptical. Thirteen years is a helluva long time and the Macanese market will, at its current pace, have long since left places like Greek Mythology in the dust.