Macau's casino chiefs are transforming what was once muddy swampland outside the Chinese gambling hub into a Vegas-style casino capital. Sheldon Adelson, the head of Las Vegas Sands, ignited the building spree in 2007 when he opened his Venetian Macao on what he named the Cotai Strip. "Everyone thought it was headed straight to the bankruptcy court," he says. "Now if people could cut off their arms to get a spot on Cotai, I'd have a warehouse full of arms." Last year the Chinese city's casinos pulled in $38 billion from gambling (six times the Las Vegas Strip). Once six new Cotai casinos come online, that number could break $50 billion.
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