GOP megadonor, casino magnate in Vegas, Macao
LAS VEGAS — Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire mogul, Republican megadonor and power broker who built a casino empire spanning from Las Vegas to China and became a singular force in domestic and international politics, has died after a long illness.
Adelson died at 87 from complications related to treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Las Vegas Sands announced Tuesday.
He was the son of Jewish immigrants raised in a Boston tenement who became one of the world’s richest men. The chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands brought singing gondoliers to the Vegas Strip and foresaw the same potential in Asia. Forbes ranked him No. 19 in the U.S., worth an estimated $29.8 billion.
Blunt yet secretive, the squatly built Adelson resembled an old-fashioned political boss. He became one of the nation’s most influential GOP donors by setting records for individual contributions.
Adelson hosted the party’s top strategists and candidates at his modest office wedged among the casinos of the Las Vegas Strip. He helped ensure that uncritical support of Israel became a pillar of the GOP.
When asked at a gambling conference what he hoped his legacy would be, Adelson said it wasn’t his glitzy casinos or hotels but his impact in Israel.
He was closely aligned with the conservative Likud party and funded a widely read free daily newspaper called “Israel Hayom,” or “Israel Today,” that is known for its support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the U.S., Adelson helped underwrite congressional trips to Israel, helped build a new headquarters for the lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and later was a top supporter of the Israeli-American Council, whose conferences have attracted top Republicans (Vice President Mike Pence) and Democrats (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi).
Adelson was a late bloomer in business and in politics. He didn’t become a casino owner, or a Republican, until well into middle age. Through the 1990s and after his wealth soared, his engagement in politics intensified.
Adelson was married twice. He and his first wife, Sandra, were divorced in 1988. Three years later, he married Miriam Farbstein-Ochshorn, an Israeli-born doctor he met on a blind date and whom many believe helped deepen his involvement with Israel. He adopted his first wife’s three children and had two children with his second wife.
Sheldon Garry Adelson was born in 1933, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. His father was a taxi driver, his mother the manager of a knitting store. A natural entrepreneur, he was selling newspapers by age 12 and running a vending machine business at 16. After dropping out of City College of New York and serving in the Army, he attempted to start dozens of small businesses.
Adelson, who said he disdained email, began to amass his fortune with a technology trade show, starting computer convention COMDEX in 1979 before selling his stake in 1995 for more than $800 million.
When he bought the Sands Hotel in 1989, he was thinking convention space, not just gambling, would make money. It did. He built a convention hall to keep his hotel rooms full on weekdays and others soon followed the business model.
Meanwhile, he worked to replicate the Strip in Macao, the only place in China where casino gambling is legal, and his wealth grew exponentially.