Casino Boss Sheldon Adelson: Internet Gambling A 'Toxin' And Could Bring On 'Plague'Las Vegas Sands Owner Still Opposed To Games In Cyberspace |
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Billionaire Sheldon Adelson has not changed his position on online gambling, as his Wednesday editorial in Forbes bluntly lays out. He said online gambling could bring a “plague” “to our society.” He finished the op-ed by calling the business a “toxin.”
Adelson has long publicly cited moral reasons for such a stance, as he claims that he believes such an industry would be corrosive to the social life of individuals, especially young persons due to what he argues is their propensity for addiction to Internet games. But does this position make much sense given the very nature of brick-and-mortar casinos? Countless lives over the decades have been obliterated in the Mojave Desert at the hands of live casino gambling.
It seems possible, given the advances made by Las Vegas Sands’ competitors, that Adelson is simply not ready for an online gambling product. Launching such a project requires a ton of work and most likely a partnership with an existing online gambling firm. Caesars Entertainment Corp., for example, partnered with Gibraltar-based 888 to develop a Nevada poker site. It’s nearly impossible, these days, to develop a popular site from scratch.
In addition, Las Vegas Sands is heavily involved with expanding its absurdly profitable business in Macau, the gambling capital of the world in terms of money siphoned off from customers. Macau is far more lucrative, at least at the present time, than any online gambling venture could be in the United States. Sands, obviously, also is perpetually interested in strengthening its U.S.-facing business, which is headquartered in Las Vegas.
In defense of such an analysis on his true reasoning, Adelson, 79, wrote:
“Critics will claim I have ulterior motives in taking such a strong stand on this issue. They’ll say I’m just afraid to compete for this business or that I’m worried about the impact on my land-based casinos in Nevada and Pennsylvania.
First, with our popular brands…we would be very effective competitors in this market place. Having started more than 50 different successful businesses over the course of my nearly seven decades-long business career, I’m not afraid of competing with anyone.
Second, our company makes twice as much money from our non-gaming attractions in the United States than we do from our casino operations. Finally, almost all our casino profits come from Asia, where online gambling doesn’t exist and won’t be legalized soon, if ever."
Perhaps the most concrete argument Adelson raised in his op-ed was that online gambling might take away from the business of brick-and-mortars, since people might be inclined to stay home more often. This claim is fiercely contested by other casino firms, as they think online gambling will provide a way for wary customers to learn games from home — and for cheap or for free — before eventually coming into the real-life casino. (There’s also tricks like making free-play slots have one “win” more often than they would in real life). Also, creating an online gambling account would require providing a casino company with a treasure trove of personal information, allowing it to offer a ceaseless barrage of promotional offers to make a physical trip. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to know for sure what will happen to visitation numbers.
So far, only Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey have legalized online gambling; so even if Sands had a product ready to go, there wouldn’t be a huge player pool to offer games to. Efforts on the part of some Congressmen to pass a federal online gambling bill have never amounted to anything really worth writing about. Even if Sands and Adelson wanted to launch a site, and had it prepped, there would be little money in it.
Image is Victims of the Black Plague via the Everett Collection.
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