One of the best known land casino moguls in the USA, Sheldon Adelson, is certainly not going to have a happy new year. According to Forbes, Adelson, who is the CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, witnessed a staggering fall of his net worth by a 32%.
This news came as a little surprise since 2014 was a bad year for gaming industry in Macau where Las Vegas Sands is one of the top operators. The stock of Las Vegas Sands declined for 30% this year and the main share holder of the Corporation is Adelson’s family.
However, things are not that disastrous for the main enemy of online casinos, poker sites and other remote gambling activities. Adelson is still one of the world’s wealthiest men and he is worth amazing $27 billion. Even though he was a big loser in 2014 and his fortune dropped for $10.8 billion, he is everything but poor.
What is surprising though is the irony of how fast things can change in the gaming business. In 2013 Adelson was one of the people whose wealth had dramatically grown. Forbes named him the fifth richest American in 2013 after his net worth had grown by unbelievable 68% to $37 billion. The latest fall places Adelson on the 23rd position on the world’s wealthiest men list.
Jeff Bezos and Ingvar Kamprad are two other big losers in 2014 that probably cannot wait for the year to be over. Bezos, Amazon’s boss, lost $7.5 billion, whereas Kamprad, IKEA founder, saw a drop of $8.4 billion of his net worth.
Two people that deserve praise this year are Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Alibaba founder Jack Ma. The first earned $9.1 and is again the wealthiest man on the world, while the latter marked the biggest gain of $25.2 billion.