He grew up poor in Boston. Even as a young boy, he had to support his family financially, for which he worked as a newspaper seller. After military service, various fields of activity followed; Adelson worked as a mortgage dealer, investment advisor and financial expert. After gaining a lot of experience in a wide variety of companies, Adelson moved to Las Vegas, where he wanted to attract new audiences to the gaming city by founding a computer trade fair. The COMDEX (Computer Dealers Exhibition) achieved great success in its founding year in 1979. From year to year, Adelson's Interface Group continued to expand the trade fair, growing from 4,000 visitors in 1979 to 110,000 visitors in 1989.

Under Adelson's leadership, COMDEX became one of the world's largest trade fairs, taking place in over 20 countries. During this time, Sheldon Adelson made a considerable fortune, which he used to purchase the "Sands Hotel & Casino" in Las Vegas in 1989. The "Sands" was mainly known for Frank Sinatra and the performances of the legendary Rat Pack. A year later, Adelson opened the Sands Expo and Convention Center, the only privately owned convention center in the United States to date. The doctor Miriam Ochshorn married in 1991; they became parents of two sons. In 1995, Adelson sold his Interface Group including COMDEX to the Japanese Softbank Corporation. He received US$860 million. Always looking for new business areas and investment opportunities, he was inspired by Venice during his honeymoon in 1991. Adelson had the vision of a new mega-resort hotel and wanted to create the water city of Venice in the Nevada desert.

The realization of the construction project cost 1.5 billion US$, but also set new standards in Las Vegas. "The Venetian" was expanded in 2003 and has since included 4,049 suites, 18 first-class restaurants, its own shopping mall and the typical Venice canals with gondolas and singing gondoliers. Sheldon Adelson, chairman and owner of Las Vegas Sands Corp., opened the Sands Macau casino hotel in China in May 2004. Macau was a Portuguese colony until December 1999 and is now considered the gambling mecca of Asia. With an estimated personal fortune of US$15.6 billion, Sheldon Adelson was ranked 19th on the Forbes list of the world's richest people in 2005. In 2007, he made an unsuccessful bid to acquire a majority stake in the Israeli newspaper Maariw . He therefore decided to start his own newspaper. On July 30, 2007, the first issue of the newspaper "Israel HaYom" was published.

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Sheldon Adelson

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