Series
The Venetian, Wynn, Galaxy — who actually built the resorts you check in at? This series records the people behind the reclaimed-land Cotai Strip: the foreign magnates who crossed oceans to bet on Macau, and the local gaming families rooted here — and how the American integrated-resort model reshaped Macau's skyline and economy within two decades.
After Macau liberalised its gaming concessions in 2002, a strip of reclaimed land between Coloane and Taipa became the world-watched "Cotai Strip" within two decades. On the foreign side, Sheldon Adelson transplanted the American integrated-resort model wholesale, opening Sands Macao and then The Venetian Macao; arrived with a vision of an "Oriental Las Vegas" and opened Wynn Macau.
Sheldon Adelson
Founder, Chairman & CEO of Las Vegas Sands. Born to a poor immigrant family in Boston, he created the COMDEX computer expo in 1979, bought the Las Vegas Sands hotel for about US$128 million in 1988, and opened The Venetian Las Vegas in 1999. Awarded a Macao gaming concession in 2002, he opened Sands Macao in 2004 and The Venetian Macao in 2007, pioneering the reclaimed-land "Cotai Strip" and transplanting the American integrated-resort model wholesale to Macao.
Steve Wynn
Founder of Wynn Resorts. A legendary American gaming-and-resort developer who reshaped the Las Vegas Strip with The Mirage, Bellagio and others, he brought major investment to Macao around 2004 under a vision of a "Las Vegas of the East." Wynn Macau opened in September 2006, and the 57-storey Encore tower was added in 2010 — an integrated mix of gaming, hotel, dining, spa and luxury retail. He stepped down from his company in 2018, but the resorts he built on Macao's outer harbour remain landmarks.
On the local side, Lui Che Woo's Galaxy Entertainment, Pansy Ho's MGM China, and Lawrence Ho's Melco each claimed a place on the Strip, connecting Macau's established gaming tradition to international capital.
This series records not just the opening years of the resorts but the arrival of a development model: how foreign investors and local families together pushed Macau from "gambling town" toward "integrated tourism and leisure hub," and the lasting effect of that shift on the city's economic structure. The subject is treated in a neutral "gaming / integrated-resort" register.
Lui Che Woo
Founder and Chairman of Galaxy Entertainment Group and founder of K. Wah International. The Hong Kong–based industrialist seized on Macao's 2002 gaming-licence liberalisation to build Galaxy Macau and StarWorld — large integrated resorts that reshaped Cotai. In 2015 he established the LUI Che Woo Prize for World Civilisation.
