Last week, Audit Integrity identified the 20 companies most at risk of bankruptcy (minimum market capitalization: $1 billion) and the lone gambling operator on the list was Las Vegas Sands. On Friday, Business Insider piled on. Pruning Audit Integrity's list of any firms with market cap below $3 billion, that still left nine companies ... and Las Vegas Sands.

Quoth the Insider: "Conditions in Las Vegas are horrible, Asian expansion isn’t enough, and if this lasts too long then LVS will end up in bankruptcy court looking like it bit off more than it can chew."

Marina Bay Sands: a megaresort too far?

No shit. With an unfinished casino-hotel in Pennsylvania and the abortive St(ump) Regis condo on the Strip, Sheldon Adelson has too many fingers in too many pies. Plus, his $5 billion Singapore albatross will get beaten to the starting line by subsequent entrant Genting. And even with a sudden easing of access from mainland China to Macao, it's too soon to be going pedal to the metal on the remainder of the Cotai Strip™, as Adelson would clearly like to do.

(As though to twist the knife in the wound, retail developer Taubman Cos. made a point -- in the course of reiterating its interest in a rival project -- of saying it wasn't in the market for the two shopping malls Adelson is desperately trying to unload.)

Ohio's supreme court delivered a swift kick to the groin of Gov. Ted Strickland (D) -- and to the casino industry's hopes for imminent expansion into Ohio. By a 6-1 vote, the high court ruled that addition of seven racinos needs to go before a vote of the people, throwing as much as a 14-month hitch into the process.

If that weren't enough, Strickland has to cope with the continued meddling of Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), who seems to believe he still occupies the governor's mansion, too. Governors hate it when the congressional delegation bigfoots them on intra-state affairs. Such a clash led to a permanent rift between fellow Republicans then-Gov. Kenny Guinn and then-Rep. Jim Gibbons.

Strickland, meanwhile, is poring over the court's ruling in search of loopholes that might allow Class II gaming to go on line in December. It's that or cut $852 million from the state budget. If he can insinuate VLTs into horse tracks by May, then voters have a few months to get habituated to them before the 2010 vote.

For Harrah's Entertainment, the good news is that the court's ruling temporarily shaves $47 million off the sale price of Thistledown Park (the full $89 million tab is contingent on racino conversion). For seller Magna Entertainment, the bad news is that the deal may fall through entirely if Harrah's doesn't want to gamble on the outcome of further legal challenges and the tender mercies of the electorate.