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If Wynn led the charge to class, Adelson held the line on mass. An upstart from the trade-show industry, he burst on the Vegas scene in the 1990s with a very different business model. His giant Venetian is a scaled-down Venice in the desert, reimagined for U.S. tourists. It has plenty of glitter, and it's a draw for the conventioneers and business travelers who have become Vegas mainstays. Wynn is gregarious and charismatic, obsessed with the perception of his hotels and probably Vegas' most famous figure. Adelson is more down-to-earth, low key and operations oriented--a sarcastic, hard-nosed entrepreneur. "Adelson likes being a grumpy old man," says Bill Thompson, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and author of Gambling in America: An Encyclopedia. "Wynn craves everybody loving him. Adelson doesn't give a damn."
Both have demonstrated, in spades not to mention dollars, that the way to make money in Vegas is to own the casino rather than gamble in it. On this score, Adelson is ahead, at least when it comes to personal wealth. He ranks an impressive third on Forbes' list of America's 400 richest people, with a net worth of $20.5 billion, behind only Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Wynn comes in at 107th, with a mere $2.6 billion.
Their wealth and success have not prevented the two from repeatedly disagreeing in Vegas about everything from parking spaces to labor unions, and history is repeating itself in Macau. The former Portuguese colony had been a seedy, rundown gambling pit (Wynn calls the place Dodge City), with a gaming monopoly controlled by one man, Stanley Ho, for 40 years. Then in 2002, the Macau government opened the market and issued new licenses to Wynn as well as to a Hong Kong company that granted the right to run casinos to Adelson. Now the two are remaking Macau into Asia's Las Vegas, with all of the high-quality restaurants, entertainment, shopping and whiz-bang showmanship that make Vegas Vegas.
Each is importing his strategy from the U.S. Adelson is focused on big casinos, big shopping malls and big conventions, Wynn on attracting the glitterati with pricey eateries and boutiques. Walk into their casinos, and the contrasting business models are obvious. The Sands is a colossal gambling hall with deafening pop music. Wynn's joint has dimly lit, yellow-colored walls, mosaics on the floor and a live jazz band. The Sands has a giant TV screen; the Wynn boasts a real Renoir in the main lobby, as if the average gambler would know a Renoir from a Renault.
In Macau, however, one of their roles is reversed: Adelson is the established giant, Wynn the newcomer. Adelson says the Sands snatched 20% of Macau's gaming business before Wynn even opened, and he has no intention of allowing his lead to slip. He reads off a long list of stats demonstrating how many more gaming tables, slot machines, stores, rooms and convention space he'll have over Wynn after his Chinese Venetian debuts next year. For good measure, Adelson is tossing in a 15,000-seat arena. Wynn "yakity yaks about how [the Wynn Macau] is going to be Asia's true destination resort," says Adelson. "Well, when the Venetian opens up, the comparison will tell its own story." He also got a leg up on Wynn elsewhere in Asia. Earlier this year, the Sands won the right to build a hotel-casino in Singapore set to open in 2009 and to cost more than $3 billion. Wynn dropped out of the bidding.