By PATRICK E. COLE, JOHN GREENWALD, STACY PERMAN AND ADAM ZAGORIN

LUCK, BE A HILTON TONIGHT

When Stephen Bollenbach left the top financial job at the Walt Disney Co. to run the Hilton Hotel Corp. in February, he vowed to make Hilton a leader of the $20 billion U.S. gaming industry. Bollenbach hit the jackpot with just one roll of the dice last week, when Hilton agreed to acquire Bally Entertainment in a $2 billion stock swap that creates the world's largest casino company. "Big guys win in any consolidating industry," Bollenbach says.

Among the benefits of bulking up, the deal will land Hilton on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where Bally owns two huge gaming palaces. Hilton has five casino hotels in Nevada but had been shut out of the lucrative Atlantic City market. The combined companies will rake in the chips at 15 casinos from Las Vegas to Istanbul, Turkey, and plan to open five more by the end of the decade. But Hilton, which last year earned half of its $353 million in operating income from gambling, is hardly turning its back on the lodging business. "We will continue to grow our hotels [as well as] gaming and maintain them at 50-50," Bollenbach says. So travelers will still find beds at Hilton without having to risk losing their shirts.

BUY NOW, WIN NEVER

It had all the timing of a perfect slap shot. With his Florida Panthers facing off against the Colorado Avalanche for the Stanley Cup, owner Wayne Huizenga unveiled plans last week to sell 50% of his three-year-old team to the public. The offering would make the Panthers only the second U.S. sports team to sell stock as well as seats. Basketball's Boston Celtics went public in 1986, when they were still top contenders. But since then the stock has produced a cellar-dwelling annual return of less than 1%.

Panther shareholders will probably fare no better, despite the wizardry of Huizenga, 56, whose triumphs include forging a handful of video stores into the Blockbuster Entertainment empire. But that business was never plagued by fickle fans or soaring team salaries that can fly off with profits. "This won't be a growth stock like Blockbuster," Huizenga acknowledges. "Investing will be a matter of pride. We're trying to build community spirit and get Joe Fan to rally around the team."

HUIZENGA'S HOLDINGS

FLORIDA MARLINS FLORIDA PANTHERS MIAMI DOLPHINS JOE ROBBIE STADIUM FRONT ROW COMMUNICATIONS,cable sports network MIAMI MOTORSPORTS, racetrack facility (50%)

D'AMATO'S STOCK TIPS

"I am no Hillary Clinton," was how G.O.P. Senator Alfonse D'Amato responded to reports of his dealings with Stratton Oakmont Inc., a New York brokerage that has drawn ongoing scrutiny for alleged securities violations. But then last week a Securities and Exchange Commission report concluded that the brokerage had bent its own rules to secure D'Amato shares in a hot new computer stock in 1993 that netted him a $37,125 profit in a single day. New shares are often doled out by brokerages to favored customers before the rest of the public gets a chance. That makes comparisons to the First Lady's windfall in a series of 1978-80 sweetheart commodity deals seem apt.

Details of the probe, first obtained by the Wall Street Journal, include a reported conversation in which D'Amato asks a brokerage official: "Can you make me some money?" The reply: "Are you sure you want to do this? They [the sec] are looking at me. It would look bad." Retorts D'Amato: "Since when is it illegal to make money in the stock market?" It isn't. The Senator has said he doesn't remember the conversation. But the investigation does conclude that Stratton's assistance to him, at a time when he wielded oversight of the sec, "raises suspicions about Stratton's motives." D'Amato's seem clear.

HONEST, WE'LL PAY IT BACK THIS TIME

Would you buy bonds from a dead-beat that stiffed investors out of more than $800 million just 18 months ago? Wall Streeters jumped at the chance last week, snapping up $875 million of Orange County I.O.U.s in a sale that marked the end of the largest public bankruptcy in U.S. history. Buyers reckon they got a good deal this time. The bonds were insured against default and paid more than prevailing interest rates.

The county's surprisingly swift return to solvency won't end its misery. Budget cuts have forced local governments and school districts to lay off 1,900 workers and 250 teachers and pare back social services. Just as worrisome, plans to divert $38 million a year in transportation funds to help pay off the bonds could devastate the county's highway system, no small inconvenience in Car-ifornia. Says Marc Baldassare, a professor of urban planning at the University of California at Irvine: "We're going to be paying for this in delays in badly needed road and transportation projects."