Hit the road Jack, and don’t you come back no more, no more…one can almost hear the storied Rat Pack of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. belting out the advice as the Las Vegas Sands, once their favourite haunt, decides to drop digital and concentrate exclusively on their Far Eastern casino-resorts.
It’s definitely back to the future of neon lit gaming floors, spinning roulette wheels and high-decked waitresses bearing trays of martinis for the iconic Sands, after pulling out of the Big Apple casino-resort race earlier this year and now closing its iGaming vertical SDS, Sands Digital Services.
“Ultimately, the further pursuit of this [digital] business no longer aligned with [our] long-term core objectives,” explained Sands President and CEO Patrick Dumont, while announcing the loss of some 400 SDS jobs.
Las Vegas Sands Corp–the original Sands casino and hotel, opened in 1952, closed in 1996–will now focus all its operations in Macau, where it owns a clutch of casinos–Sands Macao, The Venetian Macao, The Plaza Macao, The Londoner Macao, and The Parisian Macao–through its Sands China Ltd. holding company, and Singapore, where it runs the mega casino-resort-shopping heaven, Marina Bay Sands.
Vegas Strip
The Sands sold all its remaining US retail interests–notably the Venetian and the Palazzo on the Vegas Strip in 2022–to Apollo Global Management and VICI Properties for US$6.25 billion (£4.67bn). And tried to fill the gap with their SDS venture.
But they’re not the first traditional casino-resort heavy-hitters to have tried their hand–and lost–at iGaming.
They follow distinguished online losers in the Wynn Corp., who wilted when faced with the U.S. iGaming and sports betting heat generated by Flutter’s FanDuel and Massachusetts-based DraftKings, and a clutch of lesser, even more digitally-tuned, outfits, such as Betway, SI Sportsbook and Unibet, who have quit the online American gambling scene.
And for a while it even looked touch-and-go for the mighty MGM Entertainment’s BetMGM co-venture offering with Britain’s Entain; although the book has now undoubtedly found its feet in the potentially-lucrative but super tough stateside digital marketplace.
Billionaire
It’s said that the legendary billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who bought the famed “Sands” moniker in 1989 for US$110 million (£82.28m) and founded the latter-day Las Vegas Sands iteration, hated iGaming to his core.
Adelson, voted the world’s 16th richest man in 2014, with a fortune in excess of US$35 billion (£26.18bn) at the time of his death in 2021, vowed “to spend whatever it takes [to stop] this [iGaming] danger to society”.
He launched the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling and he fought the Supreme Court’s repeal of PASPA–which effectively greenlighted online sports betting in the United States-tooth and nail.
No doubt Mr Adelson–in that special place reserved for billionaires–will afford himself a wry smile of satisfaction at the news that his beloved business has quit the digital race, yet still prospers – albeit far, far from its original home.
