Self-made billionaire

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: Sheldon Gary Adelson was born on August 1, 1933. He is an American billionaire businessman, a property developer and CEO and chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. This company is the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operates The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. Adelson vastly increased his net worth upon the initial public offering of Las Vegas Sands in December 2004 by selling just 10% of the shares. This led his estimated wealth to be $26.5 bn, making him the third richest person in the US in 2007. Adelson was born and grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, where his father drove a cab. Having worked at a young age selling newspapers on the street corners, he managed to own his first business by the time he was twelve. He later also worked as a mortgage broker, investment adviser and financial consultant. He started a business selling toiletry kits, and in the 1960s he started a charter tours business with two friends. He joined City College of New York but did not complete a degree there.

“Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else?” he was reported to have once asked. Adelson divorced his first wife, Sandra, in 1988 and met his current wife, Miriam Ochsorn, on a blind date the following year. They were married in 1991. Miriam Adelson is a physician who directs the Dr Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Clinic for Drug Abuse.

Adelson had two sons, Mitchell and Gary. To this point in his career, Adelson has created and developed to maturity more than 50 different companies, including COMDEX, a tradeshow he developed with his partners for the computer industry. Adelson together with his partners directed COMDEX to become the world’s largest trade show with a presence in more than 20 countries.

Originally based in Las Vegas, it debuted in December 1979. In 1995, Japan-based Softbank Corp purchased COMDEX for more than $860 million. In 1988, Adelson and his partners purchased the Sands Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The former hangout of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, in order to bring Las Vegas to a new phase of business centricity through the exhibition industry.