When someone hears about another successful businessman, he tries to find out about his parents. If he sees the offspring of a famous surname, the son of an official or a tycoon, the individual only nods meaningfully. The individual believes it is always easy to spin off with the initial capital and the support of an experienced entrepreneur.
At a superficial glance, Lawrence Ho’s financial success (Lawrence Ho Yau Lung) was not extraordinary. This man’s father (Stanley Ho) is called the king of the gambling industry in Macau and Hong Kong. Using honest and not-so-honest methods, the billionaire built a monopoly. The son only needed to get into the nuances of business and take over the family business from his father, who was 90 years old. But what was the life path of the current head of the corporate empire, MelcoCrown Entertainment?
Young years, education
Lawrence was born in 1976 in Hong Kong and became the firstborn son of Stanley Ho and his second wife Lucina. The young businessman’s father had 17 children from four ladies. While still a child, the future manager of the largest company in the gambling entertainment industry moved to Canada. There he graduated from the University of Toronto in 1999, receiving a bachelor’s degree in commerce. The young man subsequently continued his studies, earning a doctorate in business administration at Napier University (Edinburgh, Scotland).
First successes in business
Lawrence spent his childhood and youth in Toronto, where he went to work as an investment banker immediately after graduation. In 2001, Ho bought the bankrupt firm MelcoInternational Development Limited and gave it a different name—MelcoCrown Entertainment. He then changed the company’s profile to focus on leisure and entertainment.
In partnership with the billionaire’s son, James Packer, a major entrepreneur from Australia licensed to engage in gambling business in Hong Kong, entered the partnership. The two capitalists bought a hotel-casino TaipaMacau and then transformed it into a complex Altira Macau, which received five-star ratings.
The start turned out to be successful. In 2009, Melco opened City of Dreams Macau, a large club with gambling entertainment, which became very popular in the region. In February 2015, Ho and Packer’s firm unveiled a complex in Manila to the public. It was named City of Dreams Manila. This move took the partners’ business to an international level.
At the end of October 2015, the partners opened the Studio City Resort Casino in Macau. They spent $3.2 billion on its construction in 2016. Packer transferred his stake in the company to Lawrence, receiving $1.16 billion. At the same time, Ho said that relations between the former partners remain as warm as before. The friends decided to curtail joint projects only because of diverging views on China and world problems. The Hong Kong native was passionate about expansion, while his buddy wanted to focus on managing the assets that remained in Australia.
At the time, even the pages of The Financial Times sang odes to the young businessman. They welcomed Lawrence’s desire to expand and scale the business there, taking it to different parts of the planet. When his father, because of his advanced age, could no longer cope with the management of a giant gambling empire, all assets were transferred to his son. Since then, the latter has managed to significantly increase the state.
But it also had difficulties. So, because of the decline in gambling, a Macau entrepreneur dropped out of the list of the 50 richest people in Hong Kong. The reason for this decline was likely the fact that land-based gambling is under increasing pressure from online casinos.
A large proportion of gambling enthusiasts never visit land-based casinos but simply play online. The attendance of the search engine leaders 1xBet, Megapari, and Parimatch is clear evidence of this.
When preparing this material, our authors studied a little bit the most popular among players online casino 1xBet and were able to note several apparent advantages:
A large variety of games. In the operator’s catalogue, you can find thousands of video slots, roulette, card games, live casinos, arcades, and even betting on sports (and not only) events. Every player is guaranteed to find something of interest;
Simple registration. To create an account at 1xBet, you only need to go to registration1xbet.net and fill in a few fields in the registration form. Or you can do even easier and register in one click through social networks;
Convenient mobile gaming. The operator offers a web version and a mobile app for Android and iOS devices. The app has the same games and has the same functionality as the desktop version;
Bonuses. New and current players can receive rewards in the form of real money, free spins and bets. Active users have access to a loyalty program, which allows you to get even more attractive conditions.
Such diverse benefits make online casinos much more attractive. Especially since a modern person simply does not have time to visit land-based casinos, and even more so on a trip to Macau or Vegas. Therefore, the opportunity to play directly from home with a phone or computer was met with great enthusiasm.
All this led to losing a share of Mr Ho’s business, although the entrepreneur himself is optimistic about the future.
