The latest regulatory filing from Harrah’s gives a few more clues about how the buyout deal from Texas Pacific and Apollo Management will be financed, reports Reuters. The private equity partners are putting nearly $6 billion into the deal but will borrow the rest (the deal is worth $27 billion including debt) against the company’s assets.

To create that real estate debt-facility one or more subsidiaries will be created on or before the closing of the deal, the company says. The subsidiaries will house properties covering about one-third of the company’s EBITDA, according to the filing.

Splitting off the real estate assets will make it easier for developers to partner with Harrah’s without going through the licensing process, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site.

And which development could the company be thinking of? How about the long-promised resort theme park on the east side of the Strip? And no one in the history of Las Vegas has ever heard of mob money financing development?

We don’t like to keep whining about this licensing thing but the mere possibility that Harrah’s might restructure to bring in partners who will avoid licensing ought to have regulators reaching for thier thinking caps. How much longer are they going to sit on their hands while companies re-organize their assets to evade the licensing process?

Last week, Control Board Member Mark Clayton blithely reassured regulators that private equity didn’t require new laws, whatever the critics said, reports the Associated Press. Private equity isn’t a problem per se but it surely needs some re-thinking if it allows operators to work around the law.