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Sheldon Adelson, Who Brought Casinos to China, Dies at 87
Posted
January 12, 2021
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January 12, 2021
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0:49Now PlayingSheldon Adelson, who built the largest casino company in the world and used his wealth to support Republican candidates and groups, has died. He was 87.
Adelson died Monday night from complications related to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Las Vegas Sands Corp. said in a statement Tuesday. Adelson took a leave of absence earlier this month to continue treatment for the disease.
A Boston cabdriver’s son, Adelson made his first fortune in trade shows, founding what would become the computer industry’s largest event, Comdex, and selling it to Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. for about $800 million in 1995. He plowed the profits into casinos, first in Las Vegas and then in Asia where he helped turn the former Portuguese colony of Macau into the world’s biggest gambling market.
Adelson’s wealth was derived mostly from his majority stake in Las Vegas Sands, which he founded. The company, with revenue of $13.7 billion in 2019, operates a convention center and casinos in Las Vegas along with gambling resorts in Macau and Singapore. Adelson, who was chairman and chief executive officer, controlled more than half of the company’s shares.
His net worth was $33.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The company confirmed in 2020 that Adelson was considering selling his Las Vegas properties if the price he could get for them was high enough. The coronavirus pandemic caused a steep drop in business at casinos all over the world, but especially in China. Adelson told investors, however, that he was committed to investing billions of dollars overseas.
“We remain steadfast in my beliefs that Macao has the potential to become one of the greatest business and leisure tourism destinations in the world,” Adelson said on a conference call in October 2020.
In 1989, Adelson and his partners bought the former Rat Pack hangout, the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, with an eye toward building a convention center to host Comdex. A decade later, he demolished the Sands and opened the $1.5 billion Venetian hotel on the site, inspired by a honeymoon to Italy that Adelson took with his second wife, the former Miriam Ochshorn.
“Sheldon was the love of my life,” Miriam Adelson said in a statement Tuesday. “He was my partner in romance, philanthropy, political activism and enterprise. He was my soulmate. To me -- as to his children, grandchildren, and his legions of friends and admirers, employees and colleagues -- he is utterly irreplaceable.”
At the time Sheldon Adelson developed the Venetian, most casinos tried to get guests out of their rooms so they would gamble more. Adelson instead designed large suites at the hotel with business-friendly amenities such as fax machines, specifically catering to conventioneers.
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