This will be the last S&G posting before we relaunch our new format. In the immortal words of Lt. Col. Jack O'Neill, "Well, I suppose now is the time for me to say something profound. [pause] Nothing comes to mind."

See you over at WordPress.

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The time has come, the walrus said, to switch over to WordPress, so regularly scheduled S&G mirth and merriment will be temporarily suspended whilst we learn the new setup. My apologies for the temporary lack of service.

Secondly, thanks to those of you who have been e-mailing Question of the Day suggestions. However ...
... the keeper of the QoDs, Webmistress Jessica, requests that you fine ladies and gentlemen use the regular question-submission form (found here) rather than employing S&G as a back channel. I apologize if this causes any inconvenience or hard feelings, but that's the word from upstairs.

Well, actually, it's from downstairs -- but you know what I mean. Anyway, I'd like to keep the people who sign my paychecks happy, so I'd be much obliged if you'd do as the lady requests. Are we OK?

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I'm buried deep in other projects this week but I wanted to surface long enough to apologize for the recent barrage of spam in our "Comments" threads and e-mail alerts. Judging by some of the URLs involved, it looks like our old nemesis Comrade Spam is back and the Russkie bastard has learned some new tricks. Since he's figured out how to mask his IP address, it may be awhile before we figure out how to block him, but we'll work on it, I promise you that.

Also, at some point S&G will switch to WordPress (which just busted out a new mobile format). That will mean a new look and format (including extra bells and whistles). I'll let you know as soon as we have a firm launch date.

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... as even Pennsylvania racinos face hard times. It was inevitable that the American appetite for casinos would achieve a saturation point. We've not only reached it, the ongoing depression has pushed us well beyond the point of inelasticity.

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You can't play poker for money on the Internet but you can now play the ponies in Illinois via the Web. This is yet another example of legally enshrined hypocrisy under UIGEA, the parting gift of "Slick Billy" Frist and Jim Leach to the American people. (Speaking of Dr. Frist, M.D., if we must, he just sat like a bump on a log when Bill Maher stupidly railed against the swine-flu vaccine last week. Thanks, doc.)

Setting Sun? The incoming chief of the Mohegan tribe is saying the right things about the imminent need for diversification. Specifics, however, are few on the ground. Mohegan Sun, meanwhile, finds itself between several rocks and hard places: potential competition from Massachusetts and Long Island, $1 billion in debt, falling revenues and the economic inability to finish planned improvements. Depending on how quickly Massachusetts gets its act together, Mohegan's moment in the sun could soon pass.

You've heard of "pocket pool," now the Review-Journal's intrepid Howard Stutz reaches deep into the demimonde of PocketCasino, the new, portable sports-betting technology in play at Venetian/Palazzo. No word yet on whether excessive play causes blindness or hair growth on one's palms.

(Seriously, as a longtime skeptic of Cantor Gaming's portable-gambling applications, I have to say it looks like the Cantor boys have come up aces this time. As for handheld substitutes for table games, the jury is still out on that, four years after their legalization.)

Fontainebleau Las Vegas from Running Bull Productions on Vimeo.

Pennies for F'bleau. What's Fontainebleau worth? Jack shit, according to Penn National Gaming (aka, 15 cents on the dollar). In return, Penn is willing to accept a 10% return on investment ... provided it can bring the project in a no more than $1.5 billion (not counting the billions already spent and written off).

This remains an iffy proposition, in part because it's predicated on increased profitability at Penn's patchwork assemblage of casino properties. Those have to be welded into a Harrah's Entertainment-like loyalty program that drives visitors to Las Vegas. This is a huge "if," as Penn currently has no casinos in major destination markets, unless you stretch that to include recently singed Empress Joliet. Bringing customers to Vegas or even Atlantic City is terra icongnita for Penn.

To put it bluntly, Penn was a third-tier operator -- mainly of racinos -- that "married up" by taking over Argosy Gaming, the classiest of the riverboat operators. However, the Vegas market is notoriously unforgiving of new-to-town operators and Penn will have a very steep learning curve. Also, Penn is not associated with upscale properties, so F'bleau will either have to be repriced downward to reflect the Penn customer base or may need to offer promotional allowances up the ying-yang (more likely both).

If that weren't sufficient cause for concern, Penn's oft-brandished $1.5 billion (the breakup fee from an ill-advised and abortive LBO) is covering multiple bets. Penn is the primary mover behind a pro-casino ballot initiative in Ohio -- partly to protect its Hollywood Lawrenceburg investment just across the border in Indiana. It also recently bought out Cordish Gaming in hopes of getting piggybacked onto the Kansas Speedway casino license, should the Sunflower State's lottery board approve.

At least Penn is working on ways to trim the completion price of F'bleau. Costs to date -- and projected ROI -- being what they are, it behooves Penn CEO Peter Carlino to get this rampaging beast under some semblance of control.

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As they say on Dancing with the Stars, in no particular order ...

Eight against Harry: For a speedy primer on the myriad challengers to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), you can't go wrong with Jon Ralston's droll and speedy primer. It even gets props from John Chachas (R-Central Park West), who recently tossed his homburg into the ring. At least one among the posse Ralston calls "Snow White [Archon Corp. Treasurer Sue Lowden] and the Seven Dwarfs" has a sense of humor.

Reason vs. rage: While Steve Wynn was ranting on the boob tube this weekend, Thomas Krugman's column offers an indirect rebuttal to Wynn's Johnny One-Note ("Tax policy!") table-pounding.

Run, Oscar, run! If these poll numbers don't nudge the World's Happiest Mayor into the 2010 gubernatorial race, perhaps nothing will. Oscar Goodman not only has the highest favorables among Nevada politicians included in the survey, he wins one theoretical electoral matchup and ties for first in the other.

Gov. Jim Gibbons' political future looks bleak (read: borderline nonexistent) and there's not much comfort for Hapless Harry, either. Just think how much worse it would be if Reid had an opponent possessing genuine gravitas. Besides, given the rising tide of discontent among Nevada's progressives, there's a good chance that much of Hapless Harry's old base will just stay home on Election Day.

In Oscar's domain, an architect suggests ways to revitalize Downtown by decreasing energy use, increasing sustainability and generally targeting long-term cost savings. The proposal makes a lot of sense -- a virtual guarantee it will be ignored.

Holly Madison tapped an Oktoberfest keg at Siegfried & Roy hangout Hofbrauhaus last Friday. [Your punchline here.]

"Serpent Head" Jr.: If CNN ever has to let James Carville go on vacation, don't worry ...

... SNL's Bill Hader can fill in and nobody will notice a difference.

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I want the movie rights to this. 'Nuff said.

We're #1! For an overdue change, Nevada leads the nation in a good category (first item). And, if you scroll waaaaaaaaaaaay to the bottom, there's an interesting bit about and airfare-and-room deal from Wynn Resorts. (Way to bury it, R-J.)

Update: The Sun has a better report in re Wynn. I shoulda known.

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• Steve Wynn is accelerating his timetable for developing on the Cotai Strip™. If Wynn continues to learn from his early miscalculations (and I see no reason to expect otherwise), a gaming-centric Wynn Resorts property on Cotai is a far better bet than Sheldon Adelson's retail- and hotel-heavy business model.

• While the unpredictable Aubrey O'Day is the ostensible focus of this Peepshow update, she's not the main point of interest. Rather, it's the spate of cheesparing moves made by BASE Entertainment.

The show's band has been thrown overboard and the cast has been reduced, requiring some performers to double in other roles. This explains the disappearance of Katie Webber, a strong vocalist whose big number has now been reassigned to Ms. O'Day. At some point, I'm going to be obliged to revisit Peepshow but I can tell you right now I'm not looking forward to it.

• Despite Sen. Harry Reid's juice job on the Sig Rogich Victorville Flyer (aka Desert Xpress), backers of an alternative maglev project are fighting back. Given that the most difficult part of the SoCal-to-Vegas drive is past once you reach Victorville, why anybody would park their car in the broiling sun and hop aboard Sig's Choo-Choo to Nowhere remains a mystery.

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Reader kerr_mudgeon writes, a propos the return of "What Happens Here, Stays Here":

But it's still way better than the one they ran on TV in Los Angeles years ago featuring a bunch of well-dressed women walking into a casino, called "the wrecking crew"... as if their feminine power would beat the odds.

Oh my god, I'd forgotten that one! That takes me back a ways -- 10, maybe 12 years.

Larry, I got your message about being involuntarily unsubscribed. Would the other person who contacted me about this problem please drop me a reminder? My brain is like a spaghetti colander even on the best of days.

Unlucky dog. The depression has forced the (ostensibly temporary) closure of yet another tribal casino -- the inaptly named Lucky Dog, in Washington State. Memo to Strip casino owners: When players can't afford to patronize tribal gambling halls, how can they be expected to find the money for a trip to Vegas?

William Safire's greatest speech? It may have been one that President Nixon never had to deliver, thank God. Thanks to reader J.C. Carcamo for the tip.

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... but maybe not long for long. A momentary uptick in the price of PokerTek stock temporarily rescued it from penny-stock status. But after decisive rejections of dealer-less poker in both Las Vegas and Atlantic City, the future of PokerTek as anything other than a marginal supplier looks bleak.

Vegas casino operators continue to learn that you can't export the Strip business model to Macao (our over-optimistic expectations to the contrary). Case in point: Wynn Macau, which is cannibalizing restaurants, kitchens and even a showroom to make room for more gambling positions. A sanguine-sounding Steve Wynn, meanwhile, yawns in the face of competition from Singapore and tries to spin his Macanese IPO as a philanthropic gesture.

Neil Bluhm's big break. Although $800 million Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh maybe up and running, the county assessor continues to tax the site as though it were empty land. As the bureaucrats let tens of millions of property-tax dollars slip through their fingers, casino owner Neil Bluhm has a chance to bank some serious coin here. That'll take a little of the sting out of Pennsylvania's 55% gross-revenues tax rate.

A Texas track that's now come into tribal hands may hold the key to the future (if any) of limited Vegas-style gambling in Texas. The Lone Star State's gubernatorial aspirants are all over the map. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) has cozied up to the Stone Age anti-gambling crowd, making Gov. Rick Perry's (R) qualified pro-gambling position preferable ... even though Perry would still relegate Indian tribes to the back of the bus.

S&G likes candidate Kinky Friedman best on this issue (the Kinkster is pro-casino, period), while Tom Schieffer (D) is back in the Dark Ages somewhere with Hutchison. Hank Gilbert occupies a wussy, "let's take a poll" middle ground somewhere between Perry and his GOP rival.

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