Though Maxim debuted over 40 years after Playboy’s first issue, America’s leading lad mag is already prepping to one-up the house of Hef. Following where Wynn, MGM and Mandarin Oriental have led, Playboy plans to open the Playboy Mansion Macao in 2009. The one-stop shop to play and stay will be twice the size of the new Playboy Club at the Palms in Vegas, and will showcase all the requisite gaming tables in addition to a pool, a grotto and a suitably blinged-out “Hugh M. Hefner Villa” based on the original 22-room mansion in Los Angeles.

Maxim, meantime, is hitting back with two resorts of its own. The magazine — whose current features include “Celebrity Bastards” and “Horror Movie Hotties” — will unveil its first Maxim Bungalows in October in the Dominican Republic. Set on the mountainside at Cofresi Beach, the five-star retreat aims beyond bringing in a bunch of bunnies for high-testosterone guests. Geared toward luxury adventure (think surfing and kite boarding), the Bungalows will also offer a private 54-foot yacht, a 17,000 square-foot spa, and “VIP access” to the area’s top bars, restaurants and golf courses. A second Maxim property, on the country’s southern flank, is slated for next year. But if all that sounds a tad too salubrious for your tastes, you’ll have to wait for Pamela Anderson’s next project: she wants to open up a chain of strip clubs called Lapland – which, in her own words, will “celebrate my Finnish heritage.”