by eric d.graham
I just got back from SIN CITY. So, I had to be conscious of my surroundings, always being alert to who I might be talking to or conversing with- on the elevator, rubbing elbows in the lobby, shaking hands with in the restaurant, and laughing with in the casino. Especially, as I made my late after midnight, strolls down the Vegas strip.
According to Forbes magazine, the city of Las Vegas covers only 113 square miles. Which, two billionaire casino kingpins, Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn, the "unofficial king of Las Vegas,"who made most of his riches from China, have been fighting over for the last twenty years.
The casino civil war was sparked when Adelson, the world's 12th-richest person, built his first casino, the $1.5 billion Venetian, a short walking distance from the Mirage, which was owned by casino magnate, Steve Wynn, who created some of Las Vegas' most notable landmarks in the 1960's, including The Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio and Wynn Las Vegas.
The battle for properties and real estate continued when Adelson opened the $1.9 billion Palazzo right next to Wynn's Wynn Las Vegas, who resigned and left Vegas amidst sexual misconduct allegations, selling 8 million shares of his casinos to two long-term institutional investors ,at a price of $175 a share, which valued at $1.4 billion to a Hong Kong-based casino-operator, Stanley Ho of Galaxy Entertainment Group, who agreed to purchase 5.3 million primary shares of the Wynn Resorts at a price of $175 apiece, resulting in $927.5 million of gross proceeds..
With Wynn out of Vegas and the "Godfather of Chinese gambling" Stanley Ho passing away, a new dynasty begun for the Ho family, when Daisy Ho stepped in her father’s shoes at the helm of SJM, where she will compete with Adelson and Lui Che Woo for the top crown in the casino world in Macau, a former Portuguese colony on the coast of China, which has been estimated to be seven times more lucrative than Las Vegas due to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign in 2012, which was implemented to deter high rollers by making the $38 billion gambling industry more family-oriented.
The question remains, however- Will Trump's new Trade War hurt one of his biggest supporters, in Adelson, who donated at least $25 million to his campaign, by persuading him to honor his campaign promise to relocate the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, earning him the nickname of “Trump’s Patron-in-Chief”, as well as, Las Vegas's Chinese tourism and gamblers, who are valuable for casino operators, with a preference for baccarat, which now accounts for 18 percent of total casino win on the Strip as well as the three major casino operation in Macau- the Wynn Resorts, Las Vegas Sands, and MGM Resorts International – each hold gaming concessions in the territory through their Hong Kong-listed subsidiaries.
Plus, according to the South China Morning Post, before Wynn's resignation, he also served as finance chairman of the Republic National Committee and was known as a big Republican donor along side longtime Trump friend and business partner Phil Ruffin, who owns Treasure Island and controls a 50 percent stake in Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, as well as, the Fertitta brothers, who each control a 29 percent stake in Station Casinos, making part of their fortune through UFC, which they purchased in 2001 for $2 million and sold for an amazing $4 billion in 2016.
With all of this money, gambling, politics, and trade tension, the worst-case scenario could end with Beijing revoking America's casino licentures, which were issued by the Macau government in 2002 to eliminated the Ho's family gambling monopoly, in effort to crack down on the money laundering activity, which is known as the favorite conduit of wealthy Chinese businessmen. (bobbeethehater.blogspot.com)
