You may hate the proposed once-cent sales tax to tide us through a big crummy state budget, but lucky for us that Governor Schwarzenegger gave up his idea to balance the budget by borrowing against what future state lotteries would rake in.

Gambling's chips are down. Vegas, baby, ain't rollin' in dough the way it used to. MGM Mirage is the world's second-biggest casino operator, and its quarterly profit dropped by 69%. The house lost.

Given the bad odds out of Vegas, it's just as well Schwarzenegger didn't throw the dice on future lottery money. He was counting on Californians feeling lucky. We don't. Imagine a sub-prime equivalent foreclosure scenario if future lottery earnings had tanked: California could have been evicted from ... California.

Photo by Robert Durell/Los Angeles Times