All bets are off.

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A much-ballyhooed Dec. 11 event, featuring executives and owners of all sorts of businesses from around the state as well as a crew of high-profile lobbyists, once again puts at the Legislature's center stage the effort to expand gambling in New Hampshire.

Both sides in the debate came out of the box holding their ground on the issue, but there may be a new wrinkle peeking its head through the curtain.

While proponents have long suggested that gambling would be a panacea for New Hampshire s perennial revenue problems, an article in The Boston Globe only a precious few days later may pour some cold water on that thought. In its Dec. 15 issue, the Globe reported that backers of casino gambling in the Bay State--most notably Gov. Deval Patrick himself--have back-burnered the effort there. In fact, it's apparently no longer on the stove, considering that at a recent press conference Patrick wouldn't even answer a reporter's question about gambling.

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Why? According to the Globe, the backers have been "silenced by a sharp decline in the national casino industry that has eroded the promise of thousands of new jobs and fresh riches for state coffers]'