By LIZ BENSTON, Las Vegas Sun

LAS VEGAS - As a real-time indicator of how confident American consumers feel about spending their money, earnings of the big casino operators on the Las Vegas Strip haven't inspired much confidence lately.

LAS VEGAS - The state's casino cops have been busy lately. Could recession-fueled money troubles be blamed for the brazen acts of theft that have been reported in recent months? Among them:

Rob Kronman, who works in finance in Los Angeles, would have been willing to pay at least twice what he spent for two nights at the Encore last week. Thanks to a heated price war in Las Vegas, Kronman snagged a suite at the Encore for $109 per night, with a $50 credit toward resort purchases.

Gambling interests in California, the nation's most populous state and one of the world's largest regional economies, are pushing legislation to allow online wagering in that state.

Casino dealers here are exposed to a host of harmful chemicals through secondhand smoke while on the job, according to a new National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study.
The study, the first to examine the effects of secondhand smoke in Las Vegas casinos, reported that the dealers had traces of a tobacco-specific carcinogen in their urine.

After years of limited opportunities to buy and sell casinos, the topsy-turvy economy has opened the door for entrepreneurs to make unprecedented offers for choice properties in Las Vegas.
With four of Las Vegas' six largest - and debt-ridden - gaming giants scrambling for cash, opportunistic buyers are waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

Built on a hill with a dramatic view of the Las Vegas Valley, the M Resort features a television studio for live cooking shows, an on-site pharmacy, a rooftop restaurant, the world's largest mother of pearl ceiling and a modern design of inlaid wood and cantilevered glass.

More than a decade after the seminal blackjack strategy book "Beat the Dealer" brought the shadowy art of card counting to the masses, opportunistic blackjack players in the 1970s and 1980s began wearing miniature computers that tracked the value of cards through slight movements of fingers and toes.

Can the firm that helped Starbucks launch the Frappucino -- the Coke of blended coffee drinks -- help the owner of the Tropicana hotel and casino?
Tropicana Entertainment -- which has some work to do in the image department -- hopes so.

While some resort operators sweat over plans for the next hot nightclub, celebrity chef restaurant or pool lounge, tech geeks at the under-construction Fontainebleau Las Vegas are abuzz over their kind of eye candy.