U.S. not a large part of Sands’ portfolio
Sheldon Adelson might finally be bugging out of the United States. Well, from a business standpoint, at least. According to Bloomberg News, Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. is looking into selling its properties in Las Vegas, including the Venetian Resort, the Palazzo, and the Sands Expo Convention Center. Sources told Bloomberg that they believe Sands could pull $6 billion from the sale.
The company has not officially confirmed that it is shopping the interconnected Las Vegas Strip properties, but Bloomberg’s sources are Sands representatives. They asked not to be identified because negotiations are private.
Should the Venetian and friends be sold, Sands and Adelson will have no more casino interests in the U.S. Sands sold its Bethlehem, Pennsylvania casino to Wind Creek Hospitality in 2018.
Offloading the Las Vegas business wouldn’t actually hurt the company’s top line very much, though. Its U.S. revenue was less than 15 percent of its total last year. All of the rest of its business comes from Singapore and Macau.
Said IGamiX managing partner Ben Lee of the United States, “It is 15% of revenue but 80% of regulatory pain and burden.”
Brian Egger, a Bloomberg senior gaming and lodging analyst said of the sale possibility:
The possible sale of its Las Vegas assets for $6 billion could fund those Asian projects, while $6.3 billion of existing liquidity would be enough to sustain idle operations for 17 months. China’s lifting of restrictions on visas should benefit Sands in Macau.
Might Adelson leave online poker alone?
One thing that might excite poker players about this news is that Adelson is online poker’s public enemy number one in the U.S. Should he not have any more business in the country, it is possible he would stop efforts to make online poker illegal. Wishful thinking perhaps, but it is a logical jump to make.
In the past, Adelson has claimed that he was trying to stop online poker out of consideration for children and vulnerable groups, but it is no secret that he was really just afraid of the competition. Oddly, for someone one would think is smart, considering the success he has had in life, he doesn’t seem to understand the relationship between online poker and casino gambling.
The two tend to be complementary things. Adelson thinks that if people can play online poker, they won’t visit his casinos. But in reality, people who play online poker are more likely to become more interested to try live gambling and/or live poker tournaments and thus plan a trip to a real casino.
Anecdotally, that is exactly what happened with me. I did not make my first trip to Las Vegas until I started playing online poker. Online poker was quite literally the reason I became interested in taking a trip to Vegas, a trip that ended up leading me to this very job.
Bloomberg says that Adelson is interested in building in New York and thus funds from the sale could be used to that end, so maybe we won’t be getting rid of him permanently?
