Casino king ready to gamble big on India

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Aug 28 : Las Vegas Sands Corporation, operator of Asia’s biggest gambling resort, will consider spending $12 billion to build a strip of casinos in India similar to its project in Macau, chairman Sheldon Adelson said.

“We would like to build a Cotai Strip in India,” US billionaire businessman Adelson told reporters at a briefing in Macau on Thursday. “We would be happy to spend $12 billion there” if India invites the company, he said. Adelson didn’t give details of the potential investment. India now has only one legal casino, in Goa.

The Las Vegas (Nevada)-based Sands is investing more than $15 billion to build casinos in Singapore and in Macau, the only place in China where casinos are legal, as gambling revenue growth in its home market slows. The company and rival Wynn Resorts Ltd, also headquartered in Las Vegas, are vying for the casino market in Asia, where economic growth is faster than in the US and Europe.

The Cotai Strip, modelled on the Las Vegas Strip, is on reclaimed land between Macau’s Coloane and Taipa Islands. Adelson plans to build as many as 14 hotels there by 2013, he said during the opening of the Four Seasons Macao, its second property in the district.

The Four Seasons will be part of a complex of hotels that will have more than 1 million sq ft of gambling space, 3 million sq ft of shops and almost 21,000 hotel rooms.