Sheldon Adelson is a 71 year-old billionaire property developer in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is Chaiman and Chief Executive Officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which owns and operates the Venetian Casino Resort and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. Adelson vastly increased his net worth upon the initial public offering of Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) in December 2004 by selling 10% of the shares. He was born and raised in the (at the time) predominatly Jewish neighborhood of Dorchester, which is located in Boston, Massachusetts.

Adelson spearheaded a major project to bring the Sands name to the Macao SAR, China, the Chinese gambling city that had been a former Portuguese colony until December 20, 1999. The one million-square-foot Sands Macao became the People Republic of China's first Las Vegas-style casino when it opened in May 2004.

In addition, on May 26, 2006, Adelson's Las Vegas Sands was awarded a hotly contested license to construct a casino-resort in Singapore's Marina Bay. The new casino is expected to open in 2009 at a rumored cost of $3.16 billion.

Earlier in his career, Adelson launched the well-known COMDEX computer trade show. COMDEX, based in Las Vegas, debuted in December 1979. In 1995, Japan-based Softbank Corp. purchased COMDEX for more than $860 million.

Wealth

According to Forbes, Adelson is the 14th richest person in the world with a net worth estimated at $16.1 billion. His wealth in 2003 was only $1.4 billion [1]; in 2004, his fortune increased 750% after his company became publicly traded.