So the powerful Nevada Resort Association has decided to intervene in the fight against the anti-smoking Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act. But get this: The group is intervening on the side of the defendants who want to ban smoking!

The NRA is taking issue with the tavern and convenience store owners fighting to strike down the voter-approved initiative, specifically by arguing that the initiative is clear in that smoking is not banned in hotel and motel rooms. (The plaintiffs have argued it’s unclear whether smoking would be banned there.) And, even more tellingly, the NRA is taking issue with the notion that the act violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by apparently banning smoking in bars with unrestricted gaming licenses (those with 15 or more machines) but not in bars with restricted (15 or fewer machines) gaming licenses.

Do big casinos — whose floors are exempt from the smoking ban — see dollar signs from smoking customers who are no longer able to light up in front of their favorite video poker machines at their local P.T.’s Pub? We’ll find out more tomorrow, when the NRA brief is scheduled to be filed.

Oh, and for those keeping score at home, yes, that is Dec. 18, just one day before District Court Judge Douglas Herndon takes up the issue of whether to grant a preliminary restraining order that prevents authorities from enforcing the act. Nothing like giving your legal adversaries a lot of notice, is there?