Las Vegas Power Players

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In a city chock full of big-time gamblers, Sheldon Adelson, 70, stands out for his bold bets. "Either I'm the stupidest guy around or the biggest crapshooter in town," he said before opening his $1.5 billion Venetian mega-resort in 1999, complete with canals, gondola rides and its own convention center next door. Five years later, the Venetian is one of Sin City's most profitable hotels, and Adelson has led Vegas' transformation into a business destination.

A longtime entrepreneur who is worth an estimated $1.8 billion, Adelson isn't resting on his laurels. With the help of his chief lieutenant, William Weidner, he just opened Asia's first Las Vegas--style casino (see following story), he's about to break ground on a $1.6 billion resort near the Venetian, and he may soon take public his privately held company, Las Vegas Sands, Inc., which could be valued at more than $4 billion.

Thanks to his antiunion stance and outspokenness, Adelson isn't exactly the most popular guy in town. But the son of a Boston cabby doesn't have to worry much about drawing a crowd; almost everywhere he and his wife Miriam go, they are escorted by a contingent of ex-Mossad Israeli intelligence agents. Even for Adelson, some things are better not left to chance.

HARRAH'S Gary Loveman

He will soon be the highest roller in the gaming industry--but Gary Loveman, 44, is already the unlikeliest. Only several years ago, Loveman was a professor at Harvard Business School, specializing in the service economy. Now he's applying some of those theories about retail and customer loyalty to Harrah's Entertainment, which, after last week's $9.25 billion--including debt--deal for Caesars Entertainment is consummated, will cement its position as the world's biggest casino operator.

With a Ph.D. in economics, Loveman knows how to use data to learn more than anybody else about his customers. Instead of catering to big spenders, he has focused Harrah's on the small-time, frequent gamblers who come to play the slots at his many riverboat and Indian casinos around the U.S. He's betting that he can draw many of those people to his newly acquired properties on the Strip. Loveman still commutes to Vegas from Boston, and he doesn't care much for gambling himself. But, as he put it recently, "I love what I'm doing because fundamentally it's mathematics." And so far at least, the numbers keep adding up. --By Laura A. Locke/Las Vegas