Sheldon Adelson: The Casino Mogul Who Championed Israel

From Dorchester to the Strip

Sheldon Gary Adelson was born on August 4, 1933, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston to a Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant family. His father was a taxi driver, his mother ran a knitting shop. The family was poor — Adelson later recalled sharing a single bedroom with his parents and siblings.

Adelson’s entrepreneurial instincts appeared early. At twelve, he borrowed two hundred dollars from his uncle to buy a license to sell newspapers on a Boston street corner. By sixteen, he was running a candy vending machine business. He never attended college, instead launching himself into a series of ventures — over fifty businesses before he found the one that made him wealthy.

The breakthrough came with COMDEX, a computer trade show Adelson co-founded in 1979. As the personal computer revolution exploded, COMDEX became the world’s largest technology trade show, attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees to Las Vegas annually. Adelson sold the show in 1995 for $862 million.

Casino Empire

Adelson used his COMDEX fortune to enter the casino business. In 1988, he purchased the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, later demolishing it and building The Venetian — a lavish resort modeled on Venice, Italy, that became one of the Strip’s most successful properties.

His greatest gamble was Macau. When the Chinese territory opened its casino market to foreign operators in 2002, Adelson invested billions in the Sands Macau and later the Venetian Macao. The bet paid off spectacularly. Macau’s gambling revenue dwarfed Las Vegas’s, and Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands Corp., became one of the world’s most valuable casino companies.

He expanded further into Singapore with Marina Bay Sands, creating a global gambling and hospitality empire. At his peak, Adelson’s net worth exceeded $35 billion.

Political Power

Adelson became one of the most influential political donors in American history. He and his wife Miriam, an Israeli-American physician, donated hundreds of millions to Republican candidates and conservative causes. Their political priorities were straightforward: strong support for Israel, opposition to online gambling (which threatened his brick-and-mortar casinos), and conservative economic policies.

His influence was direct and personal. Presidential candidates sought his endorsement, and his financial support could transform a struggling campaign. Critics argued that Adelson’s donations gave a single billionaire outsized influence over American foreign and domestic policy.

Israel Hayom and Israeli Politics

Adelson’s devotion to Israel manifested most controversially through Israel Hayom, a free daily newspaper he launched in 2007. The paper, widely seen as supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, became Israel’s most widely read newspaper by virtue of being free. Critics accused Adelson of using the paper to promote Netanyahu’s political agenda, while supporters argued it provided a needed counterweight to Israel’s left-leaning media establishment.

He donated generously to Birthright Israel, which sends young Jews on free trips to Israel, and funded medical research and education in the Jewish state. His philanthropy extended to drug addiction treatment, Holocaust education, and medical research in both Israel and the United States.

Legacy

Adelson died on January 11, 2021, at age eighty-seven. His legacy is as polarizing as the man himself. Supporters see a self-made billionaire who never forgot his roots, championed the Jewish state, and used his wealth to advance causes he believed in. Critics see a casino magnate who used his fortune to buy political influence and undermine democratic norms.

What is indisputable is the scale of his impact — on the casino industry, on American politics, on US-Israel relations, and on Jewish philanthropy. The poor kid from Dorchester who started selling newspapers on a street corner reshaped multiple industries and wielded political influence that rivaled heads of state.