Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAPAN FEB 2021 22 at businesses in a different way and figure out how to make it better, bigger and more valuable.” Arasi, now President and COO of Bloomberry Resorts and its Solaire Resort & Casino in Manila, added, “Sheldon’s move to bring unprecedented scale in MICE and retail and non-gaming can only be characterized as incredibly courageous … he was truly the trailblazer.” Adelson’s integrated resort concepts arose from travel industry experience. By his own estimate, Adelson ran 300 businesses in a career that began with hawking newspapers on Boston street corners; he later owned the most-read papers in Las Vegas and Israel. From vending machines to windshield de- icer spray, Adelson bounced into the travel and tour business; decades later, the college dropout could pull an Asian city’s Chamber of Commerce directory out of his desk and give visiting executives a master class on group sales. BIGGEST IN VEGAS Captivated by the markup on exhibition floor space, Adelson – who never used a computer – launched the personal computer industry trade show Comdex in Las Vegas, the largest MICE event in Vegas by the late 1980s. But Adelson resented the treatment he received from Strip hotels. Even though he was “their biggest customer,” Adelson complained in an interview about hotel contracts that reserved the right to cancel bookings if another event, say a big boxing match, could fill those rooms with gamblers instead of conventioneers. So Adelson bought the Sands hotel, The Venetian Las Vegas transformed Las Vegas following its 1999 launch. 1999年のローンチでザ・ベネチアン・ラスベガスはラスベガスを変えた COVER STORY