Macau: The Game Changer  Macau was once a tired colonial
outpost. Now China is turning it into the world's gambling
capital. Dorinda Elliott plays the tables—and looks for the old
romantic Macau of her past   One by one the players lean
forward, pressing their noses to the table, slowly peeling back
their two cards with tobacco-stained fingers. I am hovering over
a baccarat table, trying to muster the courage to join some
Chinese card sharks with buzz-cuts. They throw their cards at
the dealer in disgust. She responds with a bored roll of her
eyes. A cloud of cigarette smoke hangs over the table: Just
about everybody in the casino seems to be smoking—in fact, the
place reeks of cigarettes. It's two o'clock on a Wednesday
afternoon at the Venetian Macau casino, just a half-hour free
bus ride from mainland China, and the tables are packed.  I'm
not sure why I find this intimidating. As a foreign
correspondent, I had dodged bullets in Jakarta, marched with
protesters in Beijing, and faced angry mobs in Moscow. B