Despite challenges from prediction markets, Ozempic and rising costs, the restaurateur owner of the Houston Rockets seeks to add 50 locations, and a mountain of debt, to his existing empire.

Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta has spent the past year living in Rome as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Italy. It’s a lot more work than he thought it would be, Fertitta told Forbes last year, but thrilling. His Instagram is a curated parade of meetings with one-name dignitaries such as Meloni, Prada, Rubio and the Pope -- in resplendent Roman settings, accompanied by his second wife Lauren.

And now the fun never has to end. When his term is over, Fertitta will have his own Eternal City to return to in the form of casino giant Caesars Entertainment, which he agreed last week to purchase for $6 billion in cash plus the assumption of more than $12 billion in debt.

Fertitta already owns 500 restaurants, 5,000 hotel rooms, eight Golden Nugget casinos through his Fertitta Entertainment, as well as the Houston Rockets. For $300 million he just bought the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun (to become the Houston Comets).

Taking over Caesars gives him a vast new canvas for his imperial ambitions. Caesars, with $12 billion in revenue, vies with MGM Resorts and Las Vegas Sands as........

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