The odds still look long right now as the end of the legislative session looms on July 31^st. But with hundreds of millions in potential revenue at stake, Beacon Hill is mounting a last-ditch effort to pass a gambling bill.

A legislative conference committee is moving closer to a tentative agreement on the rough outlines of a casino bill, with a formal announcement possible by week’s end, according to two industry insiders monitoring the discussions

The budding proposal comes after House and Senate leaders, emerging from a meeting with Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday, pledged to revive the faltering casino effort.

The scramble represents a dramatic reversal of fortune for gambling boosters in Massachusetts, with a casino and slot bill appearing all but a done deal just a few weeks ago after decades of misfires and humiliating defeats.

But sharp differences over what kind of gambling bill should be passed have undermined the process, with House Speaker Robert DeLeo, whose district includes Suffolk Downs, insisting on including racetrack slots despite strong opposition from Senate President Therese Murray and Patrick.

Legislative negotiators are now looking at plan that could include two or three casinos, with one or two slot parlors. One idea for defusing the racetrack slot controversy, in turn, involves restricting them to a set period of time, after which they would sunset, noted one executive.

“My guess is they can get a vote done by Friday,’’ said one suddenly optimistic industry executive

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The odds still look long right now as the end of the legislative session looms on July 31^st. But with hundreds of millions in potential revenue at stake, Beacon Hill is mounting a last-ditch effort to pass a gambling bill.

A legislative conference committee is moving closer to a tentative agreement on the rough outlines of a casino bill, with a formal announcement possible by week’s end, according to two industry insiders monitoring the discussions

The budding proposal comes after House and Senate leaders, emerging from a meeting with Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday, pledged to revive the faltering casino effort.

The scramble represents a dramatic reversal of fortune for gambling boosters in Massachusetts, with a casino and slot bill appearing all but a done deal just a few weeks ago after decades of misfires and humiliating defeats.

But sharp differences over what kind of gambling bill should be passed have undermined the process, with House Speaker Robert DeLeo, whose district includes Suffolk Downs, insisting on including racetrack slots despite strong opposition from Senate President Therese Murray and Patrick.

Legislative negotiators are now looking at plan that could include two or three casinos, with one or two slot parlors. One idea for defusing the racetrack slot controversy, in turn, involves restricting them to a set period of time, after which they would sunset, noted one executive.

“My guess is they can get a vote done by Friday,’’ said one suddenly optimistic industry executive

Forget about silly talk of Steve Wynn scoping the South Boston waterfront for a casino.

Wynn’s a busy guy of late, having pulled out last fall of a competition to build a racino in Queens and then toying for a short time with the idea of siring a casino in Philadelphia.

But please, before the Southie casino story pops up again, someone check the clips. Frankly, it pops up every time a casino bill gets close on Beacon Hill, but we are no more likely to see a casino down there than a football stadium.

Why? Go ask Southie’s elected leaders, such as State. Sen. Jack Hart.

Granted it’s a fun story – and I’ve done more than my share of those.

But a much bigger story no one seems to be paying much attention to is the winding down of the legislative clock.

Yes, the session ends on July 31^st, after which gambling legislation, if it hasn’t been passed or signed by the governor, will die.

However, given how contentious the debate is this year, the effective deadline for the Legislature passing a bill this year is July 22 – this coming Thursday.

If House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray can’t get agree on a bill to the governor by Thursday, Patrick will suddenly find himself with a trump card.

Basically, if a bill is passed after July 22^nd, the governor can simply pocket it and let it die if he doesn’t like it.

Would he? Why not - it’s an election year and Patrick has spent months railing against racetrack slots, something the House leader seems to really want in any bill.

Of course, the Legislature could try and override Patrick’s veto. But the Senate, when it recently passed its casino proposal, fell one short of a veto-proof margin.

Good luck with that.

I can sum up in two words the trump card Mayor Thomas M. Menino is slapping on the table in his battle to get work moving again on the stalled Filene’s development project – casino gambling.

In my B&T column, I noted back on April 5th that Menino, in his showdown with Vornado and its chairman Steve Roth over the half gutted Filene’s block, held an especially potent secret weapon in his back pocket.

As I noted, Vornado is a key player in a group of investors seeking to turn Suffolk Downs into a casino. And without Menino’s active support, that casino plan, I argued, is going nowhere.

Further, I pointed out the obvious – Vornado knows this and is not going to try and stick it to the mayor and lose out on a casino windfall.

Well, what do you know, with a casino bill possibly passing in a matter of weeks, Menino is putting his best card down.

Reading between the lines of a recent Globe article, the mayor seems to be saying something like this: If you don’t fix the Filene’s mess, I am going to get you booted off the Suffolk casino team.

Now how’s that for clout?

The pressure is mounting on Hub tower developer John Hynes to get work started again on the long-stalled Filene’s project.

Not surprisingly, he would like to ditch his now toxically-controversial partner in the project, New York-based Vornado. If you may recall, the giant real estate investment firm infuriated Mayor Thomas M. Menino when its chief executive put foot in mouth earlier this year and bragged about letting a Manhattan development plan sit idle in a bid to extra government goodies.

Not missing the obvious analogy with Filene’s, Menino blew, forcing an apology from Steven Roth, Vornado’s chairman.

But the real question is why what kind of dough Vornado seeking for its stake in the now deader than dead $750 million Filene’s tower complex and why would anyone pay the kind of big bucks that likely involves?

That last time I checked, the price-tag for buying Vornado out was an unappetizing $100 million. That was the estimate bandied about when Menino and City Hall started rumbling about taking the property by eminent domain.

It’s hard to see anyone with any shred of sanity laying out $100 million in order to get a deck chair on this Titanic of downtown development projects.

I guess it’s always possible Vornado will simply eat its losses – after all it stands to make a good deal of money if and when Suffolk Downs snags a casino license. (Vornado, as I have noted before in my B&T columns, is a key investor in the track.)

After all, don’t make the mayor any angrier than he already is when there is a casino goldmine to be gained.

Forget about that old image of the lone developer out there on the frontier, pushing the envelope.

Instead, most builders would much rather follow the pack and let a few impatient pioneers wind up with all the arrows.

Developers like a crowd – just so long as the competition is not across the street.

The result is once a trend gets rolling, everyone jumps on. It happened with telecom hotels a few years ago, then condos.

So with the office market still struggling, the industry buzz now is about apartments.

For one, vacancy rates are low, especially compared to a number of downtown Boston’s new condo towers. Secondly, rental projects are probably one of the few things banks will agree to finance now.

So as developers look to get back into the game, look for a surge in apartment proposals.

In fact, there is already talk that Joe Fallon may be looking to build apartments next on Fan Pier instead of more condos. Look for others to make that shift as well in the coming months.

Meanwhile, out in the suburbs, Philadelphia-based O’Neill Property Group is looking to get started on the construction of major apartment complex on the Belmont/Cambridge line, while another developer in Concord has landed financing to begin work on a 350 unit apartment complex.