KVIG Informative

The company that pioneered Las Vegas’s modern mega-resort template no longer owns the resort it built. Las Vegas Sands Corp. sold The Venetian Resort for $6.25 billion in 2022, completing a withdrawal from the Strip that traces back to a hotel financed seven decades earlier by a Texas gambler and a Cleveland casino operator.

The Sands Hotel opened on the Strip in 1953, built by investors including New York nightclub director Jack Entratter, Cleveland casino figure Carl Cohen and Houston, Texas, gambler Jake Freedman, according to UNLV Libraries Special Collections. Architect Wayne McAllister designed the property in the Googie style that defined early Strip resorts, the same UNLV Libraries record states.

The Sands built its reputation through the 1950s and 1960s as the home of the Copa Room, drawing the entertainers Las Vegas would later brand the Rat Pack, according to UNLV Libraries Special Collections. Howard Hughes bought the property in 1967, folding it into the hotel empire he assembled on the Strip that decade, the same UNLV Libraries record states.

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MGM Grand, Inc., the company controlled by Kirk Kerkorian, purchased the Sands in 1988, according to UNLV Libraries Special Collections. Sheldon Adelson led a group that bought the property in 1989 for $110 million, with partners Richard Katzeff, Irwin Chafetz, Ted Cutler and Jordan Shapiro, the same UNLV Libraries record states. The new owners opened the Sands Expo and Convention Center on the site, a 575,000-square-foot facility, according to the same source.

The Sands Hotel closed on June 30, 1996, and was imploded on Nov. 26, 1996, according to UNLV Libraries Special Collections. Adelson’s company replaced it with The Venetian, which opened May 3, 1999, according to Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s own published company history. Las Vegas Sands describes The Venetian as the first property built as a fully “Integrated Resort,” combining gaming, hotel rooms, a convention center, dining, entertainment and retail on one site — a design the company’s history credits with reshaping how Strip resorts were built afterward.

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Las Vegas Sands Corp. sold The Venetian Resort, including Sands Expo, to affiliates of Apollo Global Management and VICI Properties for approximately $6.25 billion, completing the sale on Feb. 23, 2022, according to the company’s own announcement of the transaction. The company said the proceeds would support reinvestment in its Asia properties, including a $1 billion reinvestment at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and a $2.2 billion renovation at The Londoner in Macao, the same announcement states. Las Vegas Sands kept its corporate headquarters in Las Vegas despite the sale, according to the same source.

The site has now completed a full circuit: a hotel built by a Texas gambler and a Cleveland casino operator in 1953 became, through Hughes, Kerkorian and Adelson, the proving ground for the integrated-resort format that casino companies now build from Macao to Singapore — and the Las Vegas property that started it all now belongs to a private equity firm and a real estate investment trust, not the company whose name is on the brand it created.