Sheldon Adelson

It's strange how "scandal" gets defined these days in Washington. At the moment, everyone is screaming about the "scandal" of the Internal Revenue Service scrutinizing conservative nonprofits before granting them tax-exempt status. Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years. The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity.

On one corner of the Las Vegas Strip, Steve Wynn runs his signature $2.7-billion mega-resort and busily plans another. Across the street, Sheldon Adelson is building the Palazzo hotel-casino next to his successful Venetian. Soon to be shimmering near both properties are Donald Trump's gold-glass hotel-condo towers, and Phil Ruffin has ambitious plans for the aging New Frontier casino. Four billionaire-sized egos, a slew of big-budget projects and all within stone's throw of one another.

When billionaire Sheldon Adelson sold his successful Comdex computer show and decided to build a lavish hotel-casino with thousands of rooms, gambling executives ridiculed his business model. They said Adelson's plan for the Venetian to cater to business travelers and profit from hotel rooms and conventions wouldn't work on the Las Vegas Strip, where everyone knew casinos were the true moneymakers.

ALCORCON, Spain - On a dusty plateau dotted with half-built condos, unemployed Spaniards hope a proposed development will amount to more than a mirage in the desert: a glittering gambling city to rival Las Vegas, and the quarter-million jobs it's expected to bring. American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, owner ofLas Vegas Sands Corp., wants to build a casino complex dubbed EuroVegas, complete with 36,000 hotel rooms, 18,000 slot machines and three golf courses, and this Madrid suburb is vying for the jackpot.

The auctioneer gazed out at the audience, knowing this was the moment they'd waited for. Next up, he said, was lot No. 23 -- a "wonderful, exceptional, 66-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as Samson." He gestured to the ferocious-looking skull sitting on a stand to his left. "There she is," he said. The people who had gathered in the elegant gallery at the Venetian hotel gasped. Samson is one of the three most complete T. rex specimens ever discovered, possessing the most intact skull in existence.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and a "super PAC" working on his behalf spent more than twice as much as they raised in January, underscoring how persistent challenges by rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have taxed the former Massachusetts governor's financial operation. In a month when Romney lost two of the four GOP primary contests, his campaign raced through $18.7 million while raising just $6.4 million, according to finance records filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission.

Macao's gaming revenue surged 22% in 2006, surpassing the Las Vegas Strip as the world's biggest casino market. The Chinese city's gambling industry reaped $6.95 billion in revenue, according to the website of the industry regulator. Analysts estimate that the Las Vegas Strip took in $6.5 billion to $6.6 billion last year. Macao's gambling revenue started to surge in 2004, when Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Galaxy Casino ended the four-decade monopoly of billionaire Stanley Ho.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. has priced a public offering of 181.8 million common shares at $5.50 each in a move to raise $1 billion. It also is selling preferred stock and warrants to the family of Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson, as the troubled casino operator struggles to avoid defaulting on $5.2 billion worth of debt. In addition, the Las Vegas company is selling nearly 5.2 million preferred shares and warrants to buy 86.6 million common shares at $6 each. A unit of one preferred share and one warrant to purchase about 16.7 common shares is priced at $100 each.

Las Vegas Sands Corp., owner of the Venetian Casino Resort in Las Vegas and the Sands Macau in China's former Portuguese enclave, raised $690 million on Tuesday in the biggest initial public offering by a U.S. gaming company. Shares will begin trading today on the New York Stock Exchange, under the symbol LVS. The company sold 24 million shares at $29 each, compared with a projected price range of $24 to $26, according to bankers involved in the sale.

The latest Las Vegas mega-fantasy resort promises to transplant Venice, Italy, to the desert this week. And this time, they say it's not a mirage. The $1.5-billion Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, which has glided past three announced opening dates, is scheduled to debut Tuesday on the site of the former Sands Hotel. At least most of it.