My opposite number in the war of words over Steve Wynn’s iniquitous tip-confiscation policy, Jeff Simpson, weighed in again on the subject last Sunday. Of course, instead of "iniquitous," one could borrow a phrase from Simpson and call Wynn’s money-grab "a clumsy attempt."

(Strange Coincidence: Wynn Las Vegas President Andrew S. Pascal uses this exact same phrase in the exact same context, in a patronizing letter to four Nevada state senators that was intercepted by Jon Ralston. A mere accident … or has Pascal been spiking the Kool-Aid? Read both documents and decide for yourself.)

"Lawmakers shouldn’t presume to know what is best for workers on the casino floor," Simpson lectured. (Does the same hold true for journalists?) My beef with Simpson’s latest apologia pro vita Wynn is twofold:

1) One, to find somebody who uses the same policy, he has to pilot the S.S. Sun bathysphere all the way down to Don Laughlin’s Riverside … a real trend-settin’ spot. (Or, as a colleage puts it, lumping Wynn with Laughlin is like pairing caviar with stale porridge.) Are the tips being raked in down in Laughlin (the town, not the person) even remotely comparable to the action at the better places on the Strip? Not bloody likely. And, after all, we’re talking about Laughlin … a town that MGM Mirage has fled and where Harrah’s has cut back its presence. Also, if there were such a great idea, why has it lain fallow for 40 years before Wynn took a page from Laughlin’s book? Whoever thought we’d be talking about Steve Wynn as a Don Laughlin imitator?

2) Two, Simpson employs an extremely flawed analogy, supplied by Wynn: likening dealers to the opportunistic doormen of years past who supposedly gave the best seats to the heaviest tippers. "If you didn’t want to get stuck in the back or behind a pillar, you toked," Simpson writes. For obvious reasons, that’s nowhere near a logical analogy … unless Wynn is trying to insinuate that his dealers are tilting the outcome of his table games in favor of "george" tippers. And if that’s the case, why isn’t Wynn taking up the matter with the Gaming Control Board instead of making snide allusions via the pages of the Sun?

In the Pascal letter, the Wynn prexy (and nephew) nearly dislocates his arm whilst patting himself on the back for his "carefully innovated management practices." As for "the increased tip earnings (dealers) have enjoyed of late," Wynn’s dealers would get a hearty gallows laugh out of that one.

On the lighter side: "Lack of sleep impacts gambling decisions" reads an utterly serious UPI story, disclosing the findings of a Duke University study. No s**t, Sherlock. They had to do a study to find this out? In other news, "Sleep cuts down on time spent gambling; AGA demands federally funded study to rectify problem."