Lawrence Ho and James Packer bet the farm on City of Dreams.

If you can endure the small print, The Australian Business takes an in-depth look at the simultaneously waxing and waning fortunes of James Packer. Compared to what's portrayed as savvy handling of his media and livestock portfolios (he's selling the latter for 17X [!] EBITDA), it's a through-the-looking-glass story with regard to Packer's casino investments. There, his business acumen appears to have deserted him altogether.

A Packer associate's statement, "He's a tremendously disciplined person ... I think he's a bit of a deal perfectionist," doesn't square with the series of dead-end casino investments Packer's made in the North America, coupled with his impulse to buy in at the top of the bubble.

There may be a couple of drafts of wind beneath the wings of Crown Ltd. A slowdown in Macao means that Melco Crown Entertainment's City of Dreams will be 2009's sole megaresort opening in that market. Australian punters, meanwhile, can look forward to $590 stimulus checks from their guvmint, much of which is expected to flow into Crown's casinos -- and coffers. But across the Pacific, Packer's Canadian casinos are ailing and ...

Stop the presses! Packer is slamming the brakes on the Cannery Casino Resorts deal, paying $370 million for the privilege of punting the acquisition two years down the road and maybe clear out to sea. If it's the latter, he could wind up paying $660 million with only a 4% stake to show for it, once breakup fees are factored into the equation.

In the near term, there are several upsides. Cannery bosses William Paulos and William Wortman get to hang onto Pennsylvania's #1 revenue-per-slot racino, which is on the brink of expansion. Indeed, they could but scarce contain their glee. Crown shares leapt upward and Packer now has the option of rolling his downpayment into a minority (25%) share of Cannery.

Paulos and Wortman don't have to sue Crown and stick in the mud Gretel Packer for scuppering the deal -- and the unnamed trustees who constituted three big spanners in the works turn out to be Ms. Packer's three little kids. This revelation should go a long way toward satisfying Pennsylvania regulatory concerns. On that front, the clock continues to run, as the new Packer/Paulos-Wortman accord gives Crown 90 days to complete the regulatory-approval process.

The funniest line in the news coverage has to be "a complete collapse of the deal would have tarnished [Crown's] reputation in the tight knit US casino industry." Because it's not like Crown's escutcheon is all shiny-like, what with $455 million worth of anvils tied around its neck in the form of written-off grubstakes in Harrah's Entertainment, Station Casinos, Crown Las Vegas, not to mention an ongoing commitment to mastodonic Fontainebleau.

No what to with all that money from Packer's Down Under real estate play? It's said young Packer "didn’t have to sell, but he could see better places for his interest, to put his money." There sure are ... like Trump Entertainment Resorts or the Cosmopolitan and maybe the former Herbst Gaming empire, or perhaps bits and pieces of that disintegrating edifice known as Las Vegas Sands.

Meanwhile it's a happy day indeed at Cannery HQ, what with $50 million of Crown's money in the kitty, free and clear, plus hundreds of millions more sitting in escrow, plus a blue-sky future in Pennsylvania. Break out the bubbly, Bill and Bill!

Another downbeat quarter for struggling Shuffle Master. Considering the uninspiring succession plan for the post-Yoseloff era, is it too soon to say "takeover target"?

What's the future of Las Vegas Sands now that CEO Sheldon Adelson has dissident executives on the run and is exuding optimism that even Dr. Pangloss might deem over the top? (To say nothing of the revelation that many key shots are being called by Mrs. Adelson.) I consulted the utterances of the prophet Stewie Griffin, as found in Family Guy I:2, and beheld these words: " ... partly cloudy with a chance of doom!"