Inside Asian Gaming

July 2008 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 7 2 Sheldon Adelson Chairman and CEO, Las Vegas Sands Corp. 3 Steve Wynn Chairman and CEO, Wynn Resorts In just four years, the cab driver’s son from Boston Massachusetts has made an indelible mark on the casino industry in Macau, and is on his way to doing the same in Singapore. In the process, he has become one of the richest men in the world. By his own admission, Mr Adelson is as much a real estate entrepreneur as a traditional American casino showman. He does though have a special ability— common to the most successful business people—of being able to think the previously unthinkable, and to unthink the received wisdom of the day. In an interview with CNN at The Venetian Macao,heproclaimed:“Youhave tochallenge the status quo,you have to change the status quo, and if you change it in any business, success will follow you like a shadow.” An early example of that principle, he says, is when he decided to put fax machines and mini bars in his first Las Vegas property, the now-demolished Sands Hotel. “People told me I was crazy,” remarked Mr Adelson. “Before that, guests had to walk through the casino to get to the bar or to visit the business centre. I decided to treat personal fortunes have risen in line with Macau’s gaming revenues. Between May 2004, when Sands Macao opened for business, and 2006, his personal net worth rose by US$17.5 billion—an earnings rate of around US$1 million per hour. By December 2007, he was considered by Forbes to be the third richest person in the US with a net worth of US$28 billion. “He got richer faster than anyone else in history,” according to Peter W. Bernstein, co- author of All the Money in the World, a book about the people on the Forbes 400 list. “Sheldon wanted to be richer than Bill Gates. He always wanted to be number one,” says Jason Chudnofsky, for eight years the chief executive of the Las Vegas trade show Comdex that Mr Adelson owned but sold to Japanese company SoftBank for US$862 million in 1995. the guests like adults.” Mr Adelson also dared to dream that Macau could be transformed from a day- trip hardcore gambling getaway to a multi- night stay leisure tourism and conventions destination, and is in the process of investing billions to achieve that goal. It was his vision that created the concept of The Cotai Strip™—now trademarked along with the phrase Asia’s Las Vegas™ by his operating company, Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS). At last estimate, LVS is in the process of investing US$12 billion on the Cotai Strip to build 14 casinos with 20,000 hotel rooms, 3 million sq. ft each of retail and convention space, along with dozens of restaurants and entertainment facilities, anchored by the US$2.4 billion 3,000 all-suiteVenetianMacao, which opened in August last year. LVS will also spend up to US$4 billion (at last estimate) to create the Marina Bay Sands, one of two sprawling integrated resorts under construction in Singapore. Mr Adelson’s early success in Macau was one of the factors behind the Singapore government’s decision to legalise casino gaming in the city state in 2005. Mr Adelson may make even more of an impact in Asia and grow even wealthier if the reports about his wishes to expand into the Japan market are credible and come to fruition. As the first exporter of Las Vegas-style gaming resorts to Macau, Mr Adelson’s SteveWynn’sinfluenceonMacauextends well beyond the walls of Wynn Macau right up to the front door of his industry rival Sheldon Adelson’s Venetian Macao property. The latter might never have been built were it not for Mr Wynn’s vision back in the 1980s. It was he who first had the bright idea of creating a casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip that placed as much importance on dining and entertainment as on gaming.The result was the Mirage. It was this pioneering of the integrated resort concept that is also credited with having secured Mr Wynn a Macau casino concession.Originally,onlythreeconcessions were awarded, but following Las Vegas Sands Corp’s split with its original bidding partner Galaxy, each concession holder was awarded a sub-concession in order to allow LVS and Galaxy to go their separate ways without re-opening the bidding process. Stanley Ho sold his sub-concession to the joint venture involving his daughter Pansy and MGM MIRAGE for US$200 million. Mr Wynn,meanwhile,sold his sub-concession to the Melco Crown joint venture in April 2006 for a cool US$900 million—covering three quarters of the US$1.2 billion cost of Wynn Macau, which had its first phase opening in September 2006. That single property commanded 17% of Macau’s total casino revenue in January, although the share had declined to 15% by March, following the adoption of Melco Crown’s aggressive junket agreement. A second extension at Wynn Macau—the US$600 millionWynn Diamond Suites started in 2007—should be open in the first half of 2010. It will include 400 more luxury suites and more VIP capacity, including a members’only casino in the base of the planned Diamond Tower. MrWynn ishowever lessbullishonMacau thanMr Adelson,and has blown hot and cold about building a second Wynn property on Cotai. What he does have in common with Mr Adelson is a straight-talking style and fearless energy. This has sometimes led to a publicwar of words between the two veering somewhere between a showbusiness act and genuine dislike. Being a press spokesman for Mr Wynn is never a dull job. His shoot from the hip style has occasionally got him into trouble in Asia, such as the time he referred to Chairman Mao Zedong’s“imbecilic”Cultural Revolution at an investor conference in the US. According to Forbes , Mr Wynn officially became a billionaire in 2004,with a net worth of US$1.3 billion. Aside from building luxury hotels and casinos, Mr Wynn uses his hard- earned cash to support his art-collecting hobby. His impressive collection includes works by the French impressionist Pierre- Auguste Renoir and the French modernist Henri Matisse, and he has displayed the pieces at Wynn Macau.