\nMichelle Rindels, Las Vegas Review-Journal \u00b7 May 5, 2014 at 8:19 pm<\/p>\n
\tLAS VEGAS (AP) \u2013 Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson urged students to challenge the status quo, made a moral case against online gambling and extolled Republican virtues during a talk about leadership Monday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\tAdelson, the CEO of Las Vegas Sands and the ninth richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine, was part of the school\u2019s \u201cConversations on Being Successful\u201d series. The company\u2019s president and chief operating officer, Michael Leven, also spoke.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cEvery time I succeeded, it was when I did something different,\u201d said Adelson, 80. \u201cBe willing to dream, and above all, be willing to take risks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tSands operates the Venetian and Palazzo resorts and the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, the fourth largest convention center in the country and a project he developed after finding Las Vegas\u2019 meeting space offerings were lacking, he said.<\/p>\n
\tBut the majority of the company\u2019s revenue comes from the lucrative Chinese gambling enclave of Macau, which dwarfs Las Vegas in casino income.<\/p>\n
\tMacau issued a limited number of gambling licenses in the early 2000s, and Sands was the first U.S. casino corporation to enter the market and build up the Cotai Strip tourism district. The land where booming casinos now stand was once partially submerged swampland.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cEverybody thought I was going to go into bankruptcy except me,\u201d he said of the development.<\/p>\n
\tThe company delivered growth in every sector of business in Macau in the quarter ending March 31, and is on track to add thousands more hotel rooms there.<\/p>\n
\tAfter sharing his rags-to-riches story \u2013 and quipping that his family probably couldn\u2019t even afford the rags \u2013 he turned the discussion toward his well-publicized opposition to online gambling. His father came home from work some nights after gambling away his paycheck horse racing, Adelson said.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI see what exploitation of the poor and vulnerable people does to a family. I don\u2019t want a casino to be put on every kitchen table or iPad,\u201d said Adelson, who is bankrolling the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling. \u201cI know I\u2019m a Republican and I\u2019m not supposed to be socially sensitive, but I am socially sensitive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAdelson and his wife, Miriam, are heavy-hitting philanthropists, donating large sums to medical research and the Birthright Israel Foundation, which funds educational trips to Israel for young Jewish people.<\/p>\n
\tIn April, Las Vegas Sands announced a $7 million donation to UNLV\u2019s Harrah Hotel College as part of its Sands Cares corporate philanthropy initiative. The money will be applied toward a $50 million academic building dubbed Hospitality Hall and a proposed Center for International Hospitality and Gaming Education, which will offer courses for managers and executives in the hotel industry.<\/p>\n
\tAdelson is also a powerhouse political donor, pouring an estimated $100 million into Republican campaigns in 2012.<\/p>\n
\tLosses during that election apparently haven\u2019t dampened his fervor for the party. Asked by an attendee how preserve America\u2019s economic dominance, he didn\u2019t skip a beat.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cPut the Republicans in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michelle Rindels, Las Vegas Review-Journal \u00b7 May 5, 2014 at 8:19 pm LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2013 Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson urged students to challenge the status quo, made a moral case against online gambling and extolled Republican virtues during a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}