The Strip tease continues, more tempting than ever. Dollar bills everywhere. Grown men staring at all those massive, exposed ... buildings.

(Just admit it, George Shinn. You looked.)

Las Vegas is flirting with the NBA again, and the NBA is intrigued again. No wonder. Las Vegas could host any event -- 23rd birthday party, frog-jumping contest, even, oh, a caber toss championship where they throw around those telephone poles like in the Scottish Highland games -- and do it well. Even do it just for a bet, because some people will take just about any bet if the potential payoff is big enough.

This time, it's the vagabond Grizzlies who have everyone revisiting the possibility, and the Hornets might not be far behind. Then again, they also have everyone contemplating a swing through Buffalo in January, but Glitter Gulch has always been a distinctive issue, unlike any other city. A growing population, a television market, casinos that would buy luxury suites as perks for its high rollers. Dennis Rodman and Charles Barkley starting at forward on 90 minutes of sleep a night.

"I think a lot of people consider it a very intriguing market," Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik said, meaning NBA people.

The league would love for it to work out. Mayor Oscar Goodman, a strong proponent and out front in the bid to land the Grizzlies, is pushing. But they also know it's the classic Vegas longshot, and we're talking Wizards-win-the-championship longshot here. The NBA admits it. Goodman might not publicly, but he has had enough communication with David Stern to get an accurate read.

Gambling is not the problem. Gambling on NBA games is. Stern would have been unloading the moving vans himself if the casinos ever agreed to stop taking action, for individual games or the futures book, but that's not going to happen. So neither is the association.

"We very clearly made the decision a long time ago that our issue was betting on our games, not gambling in general," Granik said. "It's not for us to try and make this a moral issue."

It has been an issue, even in legalized forms, before. In 1993 and '94, the league required the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario to abolish legal wagering on all NBA games as part of lotteries before Vancouver and Toronto would be allowed to join as expansion cities. The reaction in Canada was strong, about how the NBA dictating policy to a government and also eliminating gaming that would take money out of the communities. In B.C., for example, it was reported that bettors spent $1.56 million (Canadian) on the league's games, with a large portion of that funnelled to health-care services. Ontario officials claimed its coffers had been boosted by some $100 million (Canadian) through the years, some of it likewise earmarked for hospitals.

A compromise was reached. The Grizzlies' ownership group agreed to contribute $500,000 per year for five years, beginning in 1995, with half the proceeds going to a hospice for needy children and the other half to the B.C. health care system, in exchange for having games removed from cards there. Then-owner Arthur Griffiths successfully argued that another $10 million in taxes would be generated each year by having a franchise in Vancouver, for the provincial and federal governments.

In Ontario, the NBA contributed $1.5 million to medical research, donated $2 million in television time to promote tourism in the province, teamed with the Raptors in creating a charitable foundation, and held the 1995 draft there. The government, in turn, acknowledged that the presence of an NBA team would also mean millions of dollars and thousands of jobs, especially since construction would eventually be needed for a new arena, the Air Canada Centre. The team invested in youth and community programs to offset basketball being removed from the betting slips.

But Vegas is different still. It's the principle as much as the money. Casinos don't want their policy being dictated from the Olympic Towers in New York. They don't want to take games off the board. The one exception was the Fiesta, a hotel owned by the Maloof family that agreed to stop taking action as a condition to their purchase of the Kings being approved, just as their new property, the Palms, won't do NBA business when it opens later this year.

"I do think that they would vote against it for that reason," said Jay Kornegay, the director of race and sports at the Imperial Palace on The Strip. "Even though it's a very small percentage, they're not going to sacrifice anything to bring a franchise in here, even though it would bring some blood, meaning some new faces from all the NBA cities. It would be a popular stay for a lot of the visiting team's families and fans.

"It's obvious that the NBA doesn't understand the casino business. If they were to look at the figures and find out that one percent of everything else that casino takes in, that would probably send shockwaves through the NBA. First of all, they probably wouldn't believe it. I don't think anybody's going to open up their books and show them the figures, but honestly, that's about what it is."

Said one city councilman: "They don't want to give up that piece of the business. It's a tiny piece of the bottom-line business for the casino, but it's just a service. Sports betting is really not a big money-maker to them."

Estimates are that such wagering makes up about one percent of the gambling profits, and that's for all sports, not just the NBA. That will break the bid.

The only consolation for Goodman and city leaders pushing for a team is that they're not alone as locales that will not be adding the NBA anytime soon. Just at the top of the list:

1. Las Vegas. Exhibition games will have to do.

2. Mexico City. Remember when this was the next frontier to be conquered? There was never any official announcement, but the league once talked about taking a big step in its quest to conquer the world sometime around 2000. Now, the issue is not even on the radar anymore.

The economy going bad in Mexico was the primary factor, but it would have been a tough sell to get this one past the union anyway. OK, so maybe an impossible sell. Players don't want to go to half the places in the United States, let alone an area where they would have to learn a new language. Although that doesn't seem to stop some guys from visiting the Bronx.

3. Canada. As in, all of Canada. Not that the NBA was contemplating a push into Montreal or anything, but the Vancouver debacle is a scar. The country can keep the Raptors, but don't ask for seconds.

4. Chicago. Still at least a couple years from getting a real NBA team.

5. Hawaii. Well, there's always vacation.

Scott Howard-Cooper covers the NBA for the Sacramento Bee and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.