The gaming industry asked for weaker Nevada control on foreign gaming, and got it from Nevada lawmakers seeking to placate the industry. The worldwide gaming business is now dominated by Chinese customers in Macau. So, Nevada gaming authorities, and Nevada itself, have to watch as Macau's weak gaming control system lets "third parties" insert mobsters to likely launder huge sums of money from China -- inside casinos owned by the same firms that own major casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, and also sell company stock on U.S. exchanges. Of course, people going to Vegas, like to the Venetian, Wynn LV and Encore, are going to hear and talk about the Chinese mobsters doing what they want at those companies' Macau casinos. They will wonder if the Vegas casinos are involved in it, too, and some will think they are.
But there is so much money involved here -- Macau alone now earns almost 50% more casino revenue than Nevada, $15 billion a year, a sum that will only grow as Vegas' revenue stagnates. As the article above states, the companies owned by Wynn and Adelson make by far their most money in Macau, dwarfing their Vegas operations.
Do Wynn and Adelson want gaming scandals? Adelson already has one and Wynn may as well. Nevada can only investigate and question and release its findings on foreign gaming, which is something, but they can't send a Macau mobster into a "Blackbook."
What the Gaming Control Board CAN and should do is have the guts to call forward a Las Vegas Sands to a public hearing and ask the difficult questions about mob activities in their Macau operations. At least embarrass them into doing something. But the Gaming Control Board has been more strict with the industry in the past than it is now.
Meanwhile, I see the feds -- the SEC -- taking action down the road on LV Sands and Wynn on the mob allegations. If Wynn and Adelson don't do anything first, that could affect their stock prices. Maybe then they'll do something about it.
Anyway, the signs of this happening to U.S. casino firms in Macau were there from the beginning. The Nevada gaming industry is enjoying the higher revenue, but will be stuck in this morass in Macau from now on.

Like it or not, what companies based in Nevada do overseas has implications for gaming control in Nevada. The whole idea behind Nevada gaming control, from the start in the 1950s, was to protect the integrity and reputation of the industry.

If mobs are doing business with Sands Macau, Wynn or other U.S. casino firms in Macau, that reflects on the reputation and integrity of Nevada itself and those companies' Nevada operations. Macau operations are reported in the bottom lines of LV Sands and Wynn Resorts, which are both U.S. public companies selling securities on the U.S. stock market and regulated by the SEC. That's really why Nevada used to have jurisdiction over what was called "foreign gaming" in the 1980s and into the 90s -- what if a Nevada casino had a subsidiary in another U.S. state or overseas that permitted poor gaming control or organized crime to operate there? Of course, that would come back to and reflect on Nevada and influence people's views of Nevada casinos as unfair, "rigged," or mob-controlled.

NVMojo's ridiculous comment about "out of state" Clinton voters is just another of the many baseless and negative attacks that have divided the Democratic Party here. Most of it is fueled, I'm sorry to say, by the Obama side in its drive to smear the Clinton side.

Some of the worst campaign tactics on Saturday come from the Obama forces, who deliberately packed the county convention floor with hundreds of "alternates" who had no business being there under party rules.

You paint Obama's camp as frugal and as the only one using other peoples' homes to house volunteers.

That is simply not true. I knew many people with the Clinton organization in Vegas and there were also many college volunteers whom retired people and others let them stay in spare rooms during the campaign here starting last year.

You all just did not do your homework for this story. Poor reporting, guys, but that's happened before in the Sun's political coverage of late.

"He pointed out that in national polls he’s beating every potential Republican nominee right now."

The same CNN poll released last weekend shows that Hillary Clinton beats every GOP candidate as well.

Bravo -- some courageous union leaders, members and backers are going public and taking on the ham-handed, self-interested Culinary Union and its bullying, mob-like tactics with its special caucus sites on the Strip that will have more than their share of convention delegates.

The Culinary is the most arrogant union local in America and goes far beyond what it claims its membership needs.

The Culinary seeks the help and support of other unions in solidarity when it needs them, yet will not give anything back and only focuses on itself. No wonder the teacher's union is fed up.

Coolican -- your comment at the end of your simplistic post said it all -- you are for Obama, aren't you?

Sorry, Sun meisters, I still don't buy your math. Six percent? Come on.

If only about 400, or 10 percent of the voters at each of the 9 Strip precincts show up, that could represent 80 delegates for each one, or (80 times 9) 720 delegates out of the about 7,200 alloted for Clark County. That's a hefty 10 percent right there.

But if the Culinary turns out just 20 percent of the voters in those Strip precincts, they could win about 1,450 delegates, or about 20 percent.

That is far and away a significant number, a magnified one that other areas of Nevada don't get.

If that proves the winning difference for Obama, you will have a big, big dispute...

Katy:

Read the R-J story today -- the woman who invented the rallying cry, "Si Se Puede," for California's union farmworkers in the 1970s, has just endorsed Clinton.

Oh, and this must be hard for you all at the Sun, which has always slavishly supported the Culinary union, since the Hank Greenspun days.