Ranking: 1 (including family members)
Total contributions to super PACs: $26.5 million*
- $7.5 million to Winning Our Future (pro-Newt Gingrich)
- $12.5 million from wife Miriam to Winning Our Future
- $1.5 million from a daughter, two stepdaughters and one stepdaughter’s husband to Winning Our Future
- $5 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund
Notable federal hard money and 527 contributions:
- More than $320,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee
Notable state-level contributions (see here):
- $390,000 to the California Republican Party (2010)
- $100,000 to Coloradans Against A Really Stupid Idea (2004)
Corporate ownership: Controlling interest, Las Vegas Sands Corp.
Subsidiaries: Sands China Ltd., Venetian Macau Ltd.
Total spent on federal lobbying (2007-2011): $1.2 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics
Lobbying issues: Gambling and casinos, labor and workplace issues, trade, travel and tourism restrictions, taxes, banking, aviation.
Family: Wife Miriam, stepdaughters Yasmin Lukatz and Sivan Ochshorn, daughter Shelley Faye Adelson and four other children (one deceased).
Biography:
Even after popular enthusiasm faded for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s presidential bid, 78-year-old casino magnate Sheldon Adelson continued to support Gingrich in his run for president. Adelson’s wife, Miriam, a physician, even wrote a $5 million check to the pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future in late March. Days later, Adelson admitted that Gingrich was “at the end of his line.”
Prior to that admission, Gingrich, who according to reports plan to drop out and endorse GOP rival Mitt Romney next week, was the sole beneficiary of Adelson’s largesse.
In addition to the $7.5 million Adelson has given to the pro-Gingrich super PAC, he enlisted the help of wife Miriam (she contributed $12.5 million) and other family members, who gave an additional $1.5 million.
Gingrich and the Adelsons have known each other for years, and share similar pro-Israel and hard-line views on the Middle East. The Adelsons have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to various Jewish and Israeli causes through several charitable foundations they have created. Sheldon Adelson is of Jewish-Ukrainian descent, and Miriam Adelson has dual citizenship in the United States and her native Israel.
Adelson was born in Dorchester, Mass., and attended City College of New York for some time before dropping out. Before entering the casino and gaming industry, Adelson worked as a mortgage broker, investment advisor and financial consultant. His biggest early success was the annual Comdex computer trade show, which he and his partners first organized in 1979 and sold for $862 million in 1995.
Though Adelson lost heavily in the recession, shares of Las Vegas Sands have climbed more than 3,700 percent from 2008 lows, and Forbes reports he is the nation's eighth wealthiest man worth an estimated $21.5 billion. His casino empire extends across the United States and Southeast Asia, and the company’s annual report shows more than $9.4 billion in revenues in 2011.
The Las Vegas Sands Corp. has been under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice for more than a year on possible charges of bribing foreign officials. A former executive’s 2010 wrongful-termination lawsuit also alleges that Las Vegas Sands Corp. was involved with Chinese organized crime groups.
Last updated: April 25, 2012
*2011-2012 election cycle; source: Federal Election Commission