Washington |
Sheldon Adelson, a casino mogul and one of the most influential Republican donors in the United States, died at the age of 87 this Monday for cancer-related complications, his company Las Vegas Sands reported on Tuesday.
Adelson, the son of a taxi driver, built a global gaming empire with casinos in Macau, Singapore and Las Vegas (USA).
“Its impact on the industry will last forever. It transformed the industry, changed the trajectory of the company that founded and reimagined tourism,” the company, with more than 50,000 employees, said in a statement.
He was considered one of the richest men in the world with an estimated fortune of $ 40 billion.
He was one of the first major American donors to support the 2016 candidacy of Donald Trump, of whom he is a close friend, and his influence on the Conservative movement spread for years.
One of its main causes was the defense of Israel, and among the top guests in 2018 was the opening ceremony of the new US embassy in Jerusalem, promoted by Trump.
The Venetian casino, in Las Vegas, will remain one of the great exponents of Adelson’s concept of combining gaming and tourism: a congress center, hotels and gaming on the Las Vegas Strip adorned in the Venetian style, full of restaurants along stone cardboard canals and monuments.
Adelson, born in Boston in 1933 and started selling newspapers, was the owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the only major newspaper that supported Trump’s 2016 candidacy.
The tycoon planned in 2013 the expansion of his casino empire in Spain, with the creation of Eurovegas, a giant tourist and gambling complex south of Madrid, but differences over the legal exemptions demanded by Adelson frustrated the billionaire. investment.