If online gambling is legalized nationwide, it is expected to be a $50 billion dollar industry.
That could conceivably include those owned by Adelson. But he also noted in his article that online gambling takes money from land-based casinos. Son Lawrence Ho, also from his second marriage, is chairman of Melco International Development, which runs three casinos in Macau.Casino Tycoon Going "All-In" to Ban Online Gambling | TravelPulseĪdelson noted that online gambling wouldn't significantly hurt his business because he makes a majority of his money in Asia, pointing to a truly altruistic endeavor. Pansy Ho, who is the magnate’s daughter from his second marriage, owns 50 percent of a Macau casino joint venture with MGM as well as chairing Shun Tak Holdings. His unions blessed him with 17 children, with his first child 53 years older than his youngest. The magnate had four wives and a variety of romantic liaisons, including two women he married before 1971 when polygamy was still legal in Hong Kong, and a pair of subsequent partners he did not formally marry. Wives, Concubines and 17 ChildrenĪ keen ballroom dancer in his younger days, the sharp-suited Ho’s love life had been followed with as much interest in Hong Kong and Macau as his business achievements. The Ho family’s flagship company, SJM Holdings, continues to run 19 casinos in the former Portuguese colony. His monopoly lasted until 2001, when the Macau government’s decision to offer new concessions to global companies put Macau on the map as the world’s biggest casino centre. Fleeing to MacauĪ grandnephew of Eurasian businessman Robert Hotung, Ho was born into a prominent and well-connected Hong Kong family in Hong Kong in 1921, and grew up enjoying the benefits of the family’s history of doing business with trading giant Jardine Matheson - one of the four ‘hongs’ that dominated the city’s commerce in an earlier era.Īfter his father went bankrupt through share speculation, Ho fled to Macau in 1941 when the Japanese invaded.Ĭlaiming to have had just HK$10 to his name, Ho used his family connections to make his initial fortune in the former Portuguese colony smuggling luxury goods to mainland China, before going on to build casinos.Īllegations that the “Godfather of Gambling” had links to organised crime and allowed the use of his casinos as a front for money laundering by criminal gangs were never proven, with Ho evading questions on the matter in interviews later in life. Ho had stepped down as Shun Tak’s group executive chairman in June 2017, at which point his daughter took charge. That investment came less than two years after the developer had paid S$593.5 million (then $444 million) to enter the city’s residential market with the purchase of a pair of luxury residential plots near the same shopping district. Just last month Shun Tak had expanded it Singapore portfolio by acquiring the 30 percent it did not already own in the 111 Somerset commercial tower near Orchard Road for S$155 million.
Hong Kong-listed Shun Tak Holdings, now helmed by the tycoon’s daughter Pansy Ho, had continued to grow the family controlled company’s real estate holdings around the region in recent years, despite the patriarch’s declining health.įounded by Ho in 1972, the holding company owns commercial properties in Hong Kong including the twin-tower Shun Tak Centre which stands above the Macau ferry terminal, as well as the Sk圜ity Marriott Hotel, in addition to having developed a series of residential projects. The late tycoon also amassed a significant real estate portfolio through his property and shipping firm Shun Tak Holdings, which holds commercial properties, hotels and residential developments across Macau, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and mainland China.