Betty siblings lawrence and pansy ho have become leaders in the industry thanks to their father, stanley ho. The siblings have a combined net worth of 7 billion. For the last decade, they have met stiff competition. From a las vegas billionaire who is known for constantly betting against the odds. Sheldon they predicted i would not even open. They did not believe somebody else could do Something Better than they could. Betty they underestimated you. Sheldon they grossly underestimated me. Betty Sheldon Adelson is ceo of vegas sands, with a net worth of 35 billion. Much of that wealth made on his macau casinos. The race for macau pits billionaire against billionaire. All vying for the attention of the 1. 3 billion chinese to the north. Macau is an 11square mile enclave on the Southern Coast of mainland china. For over four centuries, it was under portuguese rule. Today it is the closest place to china where gambling is legal. In 1962, chinese businessman stanley ho was the first person to usher in a new era of casinos in macau. For decades, ho built a gambling empire that raked in billions. He paved the way for other investors to make it big in macau. Today, one of those investors is stanley hos son, lawrence ho. Lawrence my father revolutionized the Casino Market 40 years ago in macau. He brought in a new style. Throughout my career and life, it has been about trying to prove myself. Betty it was important to you to prove that you could build a company from scratch . Lawrence yes. Definitely. Betty determined to break out of his fathers shadow, he partnered with australian james packer, himself the son of a famous tycoon. Together they formed melco crown. Their Properties Include two extravagant resorts. Whose opulence gives las vegas landmarks a run for their money. Lawrence it is the ultimate destination for urban entertainment in macau. Betty lawrence refers to the city of dreams as an integrated resort. Where tourists come to spend at highend boutiques and stay at fivestar hotels. What has las vegas inspired in you . How have the casino moguls in las vegas helped you in terms of inspiration in macau . Lawrence i think many times in asia, a lot of people built slowly and are more conservative. When you go to las vegas, and you see the megaresorts, the 3000, 5000 rooms, shows and theaters and nightclubs, my philosophy is like that. Go big or go home. So you know, having seen that that is workable and doable, that is how i developed city of dreams. Betty big vision. Lawrence big vision, and we need to give our customer something they have not seen before. It is about being more innovative. And being bigger and better. Betty bigger, better, and wetter. Part of his vision is attracting customers through live performances, including this acrobatic experience called house of dancing water. It is the crown jewel of city of dreams. Five days a week, 3. 7 million gallons of water flow through the custombuilt stage as actors dance, dive, and dazzle a captivated audience. Building it was a huge gamble. It premiered in 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis. Lawrence we went ahead and built out our 250 million house of dancing waters show. It has been a huge success. The fact that we tried these things that nobody wants to try has given us an edge. Betty in the beginning, business was far from booming. Lawrence hos first casino opened to disappointing results. It seemed as if his gamble to go big in macau was destined to go bust. But then ho focused his attention on highstakes vip clients. The tables quickly turned. Last year, revenue topped an incredible 5 billion. Betty are you surprised by how fast this has grown and developed . Lawrence you know, i think one of the great things that has happened in the last 1020 years is the growth of the middle income earning bracket in china. They are at an age where they would like to travel and enjoy life. Betty did you ever think macau was going to surpass las vegas by that much . Lawrence we all knew that was going to happen. Ultimately, if you look at geographically a lot of our customers prefer things that are closer. Since now the resorts in macau are worldclass, comparable to las vegas, it makes perfect sense that if you look at the fivehour flight time for macau, there are over one billion people. Whereas if you go from new york to las vegas, that is also five hours. Betty while lawrence is bringing lots of glitz and glam to gambling in macau, Sheldon Adelson says he invented the concept in vegas first. Now he says he is the one who will conquer macau. Sheldon they vastly and wrongly predicted i would not even open. I would never get it built. If i got it built, it would not open. And if it did open, i would be in bankruptcy immediately. They didnt want to believe someone else could do it better than they did. Betty they underestimated you. Sheldon right. They grossly underestimated me. Betty when we come back, Sheldon Adelson tells us why he is the real king of macau. Betty for a man whose business caters to high rollers and big spenders, billionaire Sheldon Adelsons roots are unglamorous. Today, he can also be seen at highprofile events with his wife, miriam. He was born the son of a cab driver in a poor section of boston. Adelson first began in the Convention Business in 1979 when he founded comdex, one of the Largest Technology trade shows. He eventually sold that and other shows for hundreds of millions of dollars. Ten years later, he bought the original Las Vegas Sands hotel only to demolish it and replace it with the venetian. It is the first integrated resort of its kind. With hotel, casino, entertainment and convention space. Sound familiar . In macau, he has built another venetian almost exactly like it, but with more gaming space. This is what adelson says made him stand out among other casino tycoons. I was listening to you speak, and you mentioned you wanted to build a las vegas in macau. How come no one else saw that . Sheldon i guess that is what a visionary is made out of. Betty no, but really people thought you were crazy. Sheldon of course. I have been in dozens of businesses. Every time i go into business, everybody thinks i am crazy. Nobody wants to recognize that doing Something Different than what people do routinely is viable. Nobody wants to recognize that. The only way i could prove it is to do it and succeed. Betty adelson did not just succeed. He dominated. His first resort, the sands macau, was so successful he made back the 265 Million Investment in the first year. Sheldon 30,000 people showed up. More than 30,000. We do not know the exact number, because as they waited to get in they knocked the doors down. Betty he went on to build a massive 6400 room hotel. And the 2900 room venetian macau. He plans on adding another property to be completed by the end of 2016. Bringing the grand total to over 10,000 rooms. If he has his way, visitors would never leave. Sheldon we are now developing enough retail malls of different types. You can be in 3000, 6000, 12,000 or 15,000 hotel rooms and never leave the building. Betty wow. Sheldon i will give you a short anecdote. I had a friend from boston that came in with his wife. They came in on thursday. On monday, he said, how is the weather . I said, you have not been out . He said, why would i go out . Everything i want is here. Betty lawrence ho is talking about shows that are coming in. Hotels, retail, restaurants. They are copying you. Sheldon yes they are. They are trying to copy me. Hes a nice guy and a gentleman. He has no exhibition and convention space. There is not a city in the world that does not want exhibition space and convention space. Betty as many of adelsons peers have noted, it is his very success in macau that has left las vegas in the dust. A point not lost on the billionaire. Did you ever think macau would surpass las vegas in the way it has . Sheldon yes. Betty what convinced you . Sheldon when we first applied in macau in 2002, there was 2. 5 billion in gross gaming income. By 2004 when we opened the sands, there was 5. 5 billion. Betty 5. 5 billion . Sheldon right. In two years. The business was already there. People were not recognizing it. How did i think it was going to grow . Because there were 1. 3 billion chinese. Betty in fact, about 64 of his Las Vegas Sands revenue comes from his macau properties. Since opening the sands in 2004, he has expanded into other industries. Including ferries, bringing people from his resorts in hong kong to macau in highspeed boats. Sheldon what i recognized was there was not enough Ferry Service. So i set up a ferry business. What do i know about the ferry business . What i know about every business when i go into it. Zero. But theres not much i cannot learn. I believe this industry in which we operate, the lodging or gaming industry, i believe it is a supplydriven industry. If i put those buildings there, they will come. Betty and they did. Sheldon and they still do. Betty when we come back, the battle for market share pits adelson against the ho family. Not just lawrence, but his sister, pansy ho. She tells us how she is trying to keep the gaming industry all in the family. Pansy my father paved the foundation for macau today. We carry that torch. Betty Sheldon Adelson may be trying to conquer macau, but patriarch stanley hos original empire is far from failing. His company, sjm holdings, operates the most casino tables in macau. Nearly 2000. And sjm accounts for nearly a quarter of the revenue. We spoke with pansy ho, his daughter. She says gaming in macau is still a family business. You are the Richest Woman in hong kong. Pansy i dont know how they calculate it, but they say so. Betty do you feel, and among your own siblings, the fact that you are part of a legendary Hong Kong Family . You have an added responsibility. Pansy we definitely feel like we have that sense of a legacy. If you look at it, there were 450 years of portuguese presence in macau. My father helped create and pave the foundation for macau today in terms of creating the largest industry, the gaming industry for 50 years. Him we would very much want to help grow macau to be something that is more exciting and more important. We definitely carry that torch. Betty pansy has a 27 stake in mgm china, which owns the mgm grand macau property. The casino made 3. 3 billion in revenue last year. I know you have this partnership with mgm. How is that relationship going . Pansy it is going very well. This is the moment when we are resting on our laurels, and we have done fantastically well, especially last year. We are now snug in the position where we have formed a strong professional team, which really oversees the daily operations. We have the time and space to consider longterm perspective strategies for the future. Betty of the 30 million visitors who come to macau to roll the dice each year, more than 60 are from mainland china. Hong kong is a onehour ferry ride. And with the rising middle class, pansy says the typical Chinese Consumer is evolving. Pansy what has been surprising is the swiftness with which Chinese Consumers are changing. In many ways, they are not the type of stereotype that we would have thought about the Chinese Consumer market, their patterns and behavior. This is a very fluid group of people. They are full of curiosity. Their requirements continue to change over time. We can already see that happening during the past seven or eight years. Betty pansy ho also runs a company that operates turbo jet, a highspeed Ferry Service called shun tak holdings between macau and hong kong, competing directly with adelson. Last year, her ferries transported about 28,000 people a day. Pansy we have been running the terminals, the ferry terminals. We have a direct experience. We know how to manage and how to commercialize the real estate so it can be of Great Service to these people. Betty that is not how adelson sees it. Sheldon she doesnt like that we are a competitor in the ferries. I cant say that i am the ferry expert of the world, but because she got bitter over the competition, so she has been bitter all this time. Betty coming up, the clash of the titans continues as they look beyond macau for the next gambling mecca. Betty the explosion of the casino business in macau has been a huge windfall for this tiny chinese territory and the beijing government. Casinos paid the government almost 18 billion in taxes and fees in 2013 just to operate in macau. With Great Success comes a great amount of squabbling. Adelson, a man who is not afraid to wade into conflict, whether it is about israeli sovereign rights sheldon there is no such thing as the history of the palestinian people. Betty or how the gop can take back the white house he has seen his share of battles against the ho family. Sheldon there was a meeting of the coalition of the concessionaires. Pansy ho was there. Not a very congenial environment. Betty she was not nice to you . Sheldon i dont think she was nice to most of the people. She doesnt like that we are competitive in the ferries. I think it is a matter of jealousy. I think they never anticipated that i would succeed. If you go back to when i first opened in 2007 with the venetian, and you look at the clippings, you look at the articles, it was clear they thought i would fail. The day i opened we opened at like 6 00 or 7 00, by 7 00 in the morning we had over 114,000 visitors. Listen to this there were 30 Million People visiting macau. Last year, we got 63 million visitations. How can i get 63 million visitations from 30 million visitors . Because 30 million visitors went to one of my four properties twice. Betty it remains to be seen who will claim the crown of king of macau. But for lawrence ho, sometimes bigger is not always better. Some things that happen in vegas should stay in vegas. Lawrence by having mega properties, sometimes you lose the experience. Because in a 3000room hotel, sometimes people have to walk for five minutes or 10 minutes just to go to their rooms. Asians are not used to that. Betty do you understand the chinese tourist naturally more, because you are chinese versus Sheldon Adelson or steve wynn . Lawrence i think that is an advantage we would have as well. I was born in hong kong. Spent time in hong kong and macau. At the same time was educated in north america. I get a good sense of the best of both worlds. The formation of melco crown 10 years ago was based on that belief. How do i marry the best of the east with the best of the west . Betty it is easy to see the asian touches when you walk around his properties. The dragons. The feng shui that he incorporates into the layout. Lawrence when we first started, it was gold and iron metal bars. It resembled the bamboo, but then feng shui came in and said no, no. It has to be real. [laughter] betty but adelson, who once called himself the richest jew in the world, says there is no monopoly on culture. Sheldon by vast majority, most of our employees are chinese. My chinese dealers and my Chinese Service people interact with chinese customers. What is the difference . Betty they would say they know the people. They are chinese. Sheldon oh, they know all the people . Really . I cant be a successful businessman if i dont respect who and what my customer is. The integrated resorts are a commercial enterprise. The measurement of success is the bottomline profit. Why are we several times more profitable than each one of them . Betty some casino watchers warn there is a bubble of hotels forming in macau that is about to burst. Fears of a smoking ban and stricter visa rules have investors worried that the inflow of tourists may slow down. But rather than wait, they are doubling down. They are spending 26 billion on new resorts, doubling hotel capacity. They wont stop there. These casino titans want to score big in the rest of asia. Lawrence japan is the holy grail at this stage. They have pachinkos. Pachinkos are like slot parlors. But technically you dont win money, you win prizes. Very popular. An amusementtype industry. That industry itself is 35 billion. It has a lot of potential. Betty with the olympics slated for tokyo in 2020, the Casino Industry could win big in japan with the worldwide publicity. The government still has to approve. But win, lose, or draw, the titans have already made a killing in macau. The only way to get better is to challenge yourself, and thats what were doing at xfinity. We are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. And this includes our commitment to being on time. Every time. Thats why if were ever late for an appointment, well credit your account 20. Its our promise to you. Were doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. Because we should fit into your life. Not the other way around. Francine welcome to leaders with me, francine lacqua. Pearson is an International Publishing company with its biggest businesses in education and books. Earlier this year, it sold two of its most well known brands, the ft and the economist. In an exclusive interview, i speak with the groups ceo, john fallon, about his vision of the company and the impact of selling those established brands. Thank you for speaking to bloomberg. We have been talking about the