Las Vegas Sands abandons Spain mega-casino project

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Adelson, who visited Madrid last month, sought assurances from Spanish officials that tax rates and other conditions wouldn’t change with future governments and also sought exceptions to Spain’s ban on cigarette smoking in public places and limits on Internet gambling in the country.

Bloomberg Businessweek states that Patricia Madrigal, a spokeswoman for Adelson's external public relations company in Spain, declined to comment, saying only that a statement would be made at 12 p.m. in Madrid.

The project, known as Eurovegas, had been slated to include six casinos, 12 hotels and many shops, and was set to create as many as 250,000 jobs, a welcome boost in a country where one in four of the workforce is unemployed. But it had run into various delays and obstacles in recent months.

Las Vegas Sands and its Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson had also been pushing for an exemption from a national smoking ban, putting Madrid's local politicians at odds with central government legislation as they tried to get the project going. Spain's capital city had already suffered a blow earlier this year when its bid to host the Olympic Games failed for the third time in a row.

"We have reiterated time and again that our internal development process would dictate the outcome of a proposed development in Spain. That process has been extremely thorough and while the government and many others have worked diligently on this effort, we do not see a path in which the criteria needed to move forward with this large-scale development can be reached. As a result we will no longer be pursuing this opportunity," said Las Vegas Sands Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sheldon G. Adelson.

"We are thankful to the many people who have devoted time and energy in an attempt to bring this development to fruition. The government of Spain, specifically the Regional Government of Madrid, has continuously pursued this opportunity with the interests of the Spanish people in mind and they should be commended for their efforts," said Michael Leven, the company's president and chief operating officer.

"As chairman and CEO, my role is not only creating a vision for the company's future, it is also fulfilling it in a way that best represents the interests of our shareholders. Developing integrated resorts in Europe has been a vision of mine for years, but there is a time and place for everything and right now our focus is on encouraging Asian countries, like Japan and Korea, to dramatically enhance their tourism offering through the development of integrated resorts there," concluded Adelson. 

The Olympics and the Eurovegas project had been hailed by politicians as motors of a recovery in Madrid, which has seen rolling public sector strikes after deep spending cuts and has not capitalized on a rise in tourism in Spain this year.

Visitors to the Madrid region fell by about a fifth in August from a year earlier, while Catalonia, home to the more popular seaside city of Barcelona, welcomed 12 percent more.

The gaming group said it will continue aggressive pursuit of opportunities in Asia after dropping the project in Madrid.