It is a risky thing to make deals with governments that exist without the consent of the governed and remain largely unaccountable and, in the absence of a free press, furtive. Needless to say the casino business has not seen things that way. When an elite loots a nation they have lots of money to shop, eat and gamble.

Take the largest company in Vegas, MGM Resorts International formerly MGM-Mirage: they seem magnetically attracted to working with authoritarian regimes. Yet, it is interesting to see that there is a cost to these relationships that the resort world does not seem to have fully considered.

For example, authoritarian regimes live in a world of corruption. As a result, to enter Macau’s lucrative market, MGM Resorts International cut a deal with a business partner judged too sleazy for New Jersey authorities to allow the company to continue operating in the Garden State. Imagine what it takes to be too shady to do business in New Jersey? That situation, by the way, has turned infinitely more complicated of late.

Meanwhile, last year the Wall Street Journal ran a story on MGM Resorts International’s expansion plans that do not include a single democracy: “So far, the signed agreements include a Bellagio …in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh and in Dubai…There are also deals for MGM Grand properties in Cairo, Vietnam and Tianjin, China.”

So, by the way, who do you think MGM Resorts International picked for a business partner for their resort projects in Egypt? If you guessed the father-in-law of the detested President Mubarak’s son (who was being groomed to be the next president for life until last week), Gamal Mubarak, who millions of Egyptians are currently in the street protesting, well, you guessed right. I wonder if that arrangement will endear MGM Resorts International to whatever comes next in Egypt?

And, that in fact is the problem with cutting deals with governments that lack the legitimacy of being accountable to the governed. There is a reason Chinese authorities are blocking search results for “Egypt.”

Maybe it is time for Vegas resort companies to reconsider investing and intertwining with the well connected of autocratic regimes worldwide? These are governments, after all, that may look solid one day (as long as they keep ruthlessly in control), but can vanish the next.  And, it is then that the true cost (and probably some interesting monetary details) of these partnerships will be known.