The story
Founded by Sheldon Adelson in 1937.1
Development on the Las Vegas Strip
Entrepreneur Sheldon G. Adelson and his partners Richard Katzeff, Irwin Chafetz, Ted Cutler, and Jordan Shapiro bought the Sands Hotel and Casino in 1989. Adelson and his partners financed their venture with investments in personal computers and trade shows, founding the computer trade show COMDEX in 1979. They opened the 1.2 million square foot Sands Expo and Convention Center, then the largest privately owned convention facility in the world, across from the hotel in 1990.
The Sands Hotel was unable to compete with newer resorts on the Las Vegas Strip and was demolished to make room for The Venetian. Construction of the Venetian began in 1997, funded by Adelson's sale of COMDEX. Modeled on Venice, Italy, it joined the ranks of themed hotels such as Excalibur, New York-New York, and Paris Las Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip. In 2004, Las Vegas Sands, Inc. went public, and its name was changed to the Las Vegas Sands Corp.
Construction on The Palazzo began in 2005. The Palazzo and The Venetian make up the world's largest hotel under one roof, at 7,000 all-suite rooms and 17 million square feet. The 43-story unfinished condominium skyscraper St. Regis Residences at the Venetian Palazzo is on the same campus. Construction halted in 2008 due to company financial issues.
The 2008 financial crisis forced Adelson to invest $1 billion of his own capital to keep the Las Vegas Sands in business, much of which the company spent developing event spaces and high-end retail stores in their properties By 2011, the Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s main profits came from renting convention space.
Expansion into Asia
The company soon recognized new commercial opportunities in Asia, specifically in Macau, the only Special Administrative Region of China where gambling is legal. Las Vegas Sands Corp., along with Wynn Resorts and Galaxy Entertainment Group, was one of the first to be granted a casino operating concession. Sands Macao resort, Macau's first American-operated casino, opened in 2004.
Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s future Macau properties were largely in Cotai, a district of reclaimed land created through public works projects and designated for hotels and casinos. The Venetian Macao, the second-largest in the world at 550,000 square feet, opened in 2007.
In 2008, Las Vegas Sands opened a Four Seasons hotel adjacent to the Venetian Macao. It was followed by The Londoner Macao, originally branded Sands Cotai Central, and The Parisian Macao.
Development plans proceeded in 2010 for Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore, at $5.6 billion the most expensive hotel and casino ever built. The resort was designed by Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie and is composed of three 57-story towers connected at the top by a 3-acre SkyPark(R). The integrated resort was the second built in Singapore after Resorts World Sentosa. Eight months after opening, Marina Bay Sands set a record for posting a $600 million operating profit.
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In September 2012, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. announced that Madrid had been chosen as destination for a casino resort project dubbed EuroVegas in an attempt to expand outside of Asia. In February 2013, the company named the town of Alcorcón, on the outskirts of Madrid, as the site for the EuroVegas project. Plans included six casinos, twelve hotels, a convention center, three golf courses, shopping centers, bars, and restaurants, and was expected to take 10 years to build. In December 2013 the EuroVegas project was officially canceled.
Recent history
In 2015, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and California-based co-developer California-based Majestic Realty Co. proposed a $1.2 billion 65,000-seat stadium located near The Strip for the Oakland Raiders football team. The proposal required $420 million from private investors and $780 million in public funding, primarily from tourism. Despite Las Vegas Sands withdrawing from the project, the Raiders eventually moved into the stadium after relocating from Oakland.
The company's 2018 annual report anticipated "a significant and adverse effect" from the "proliferation of gaming venues, particularly in Southeast Asia."
In May 2019, the company sold Sands Bethlehem to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians for $1.3 billion, and it was renamed Wind Creek Bethlehem.
Las Vegas Sands was one of multiple bidders trying to open a commercial casino in Downstate New York. Las Vegas Sands had proposed building Sands New York, an integrated resort at the Nassau Coliseum site in Uniondale, New York, but withdrew their bid in April of 2025 due to the threat of New York legalizing online gambling. In the event that the state of Texas legalizes casinos, Las Vegas Sands hopes to build an integrated resort in Irving at the former site of Texas Stadium. Following backlash towards the project, Sands withdrew the casino component of the project. Las Vegas Sands confirmed that they are interested in developing an integrated resort in Thailand following the withdrawal of the Entertainment Complex Bill but stated that Thailand needed a clear framework if they were to legalize gambling.
In July 2025, Las Vegas Sands broke ground on an expansion of the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore which will be completed by 2031. The expansion will include a separate fourth hotel tower, an arena and added convention space.
In February 2026, Las Vegas Sands announced the appointment of Patrick Dumont as its new CEO and chairman, ahead of Robert Goldstein stepping down.
From Wikipedia’s article on Las Vegas Sands, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6