As reported by: International Herald Tribune
In 1950, the teenage Sheldon Adelson ran a business stocking vending machines in Boston shoe factories. When the plants closed in the summer, he headed to the beach with delivery trucks outfitted with freezers and sold ice cream.

A half-century later, Adelson recalled, he was drawn to another chance to turn a profit when Chinese officials took him to the site of a planned landfill in the South China Sea off Macao. Adelson, the chairman of Las Vegas Sands, the fastest-growing casino company in the world, envisioned the biggest gambling resort ever.

Adelson's company is spending as much as $11 billion in Macao to build the Venetian Macao casino and re-create the heart of Las Vegas on a stretch of landfill called the Cotai Strip.

The project might be viewed as the capstone of a six-decade career seizing opportunities for profit. Yet at age 73, Adelson gives little hint that he is easing into retirement. If anything, he seems to want more.

"When he gets into a business, he sees potential that most people don't," said Irwin Chafetz, a lifelong friend and business partner who is on the board of Las Vegas Sands. "Whatever business he's in, it's only a steppingstone to making that business larger, better, more profitable."


Article By: International Herald Tribune