The global gambling business is estimated to be worth some $52 billion as of 2025. Although there’s a lot of employee salaries, office rents, infrastructure costs and taxes to pay, a few people at the top of the business have gotten very rich of it. Interestingly though, only one gambling business figure currently ranks in the top 100 richest people in the world. So, who are some of these people and what did they do in the world of gambling to get to the top?
Well, in this article we’ll look at a mix of figures in the business to give a varied picture of how people have made fortunes from the gambling sector. From two of the richest women in the world, from Las Vegas to Macau via Stoke on Trent, England, and (arguably) the world’s most successful ever sports bettor, these are four of the richest people in the gambling business.
Miriam Adelson Owns an Old-School Las Vegas-based Casino Empire
Where else to start this list, but with the only gambling business figure among the world’s 100 richest people. American businesswoman Miriam Adelson is the widow of the late Sheldon Adelson, from whom she inherited a large majority stake in Las Vegas-based casino giant Las Vegas Sands.
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Today, Adelson’s fortune stands at an estimated $37 billion. Which was good for 54th place on business magazine Forbes’ 2025 list of the world’s richest people. Las Vegas Sands today does not operate any casinos in Las Vegas or the US, with its investments concentrated in Asia where it operates half a dozen giant casino resorts in Macau and Singapore.
The Other Side – Tony Bloom is the Richest and Most Successful Gambler
Although any gambler knows the house always wins, people wouldn’t gamble if there wasn’t at least some chance of striking it big. No-one proves this more than the story of billionaire Tony Bloom.
The English mathematician turned a few thousands British pounds into millions playing online and live tournament poker in the early 2000s. He then turned his attention to sports betting. He founded a company, Starlizard, that used a secretive in-house data analytics platform to essentially beat the sportsbooks at their own game. He made many millions more doing this, before taking on high net-worth clients to do the same.
In 2009 Bloom bought the soccer club Brighton & Hove Albion and used his computer wizardry to revolutionize the club’s strategies with data analytics, turning them from a second tier team into a top flight English Premier League regular. Now worth around $7 billion, Bloom can most definitely be considered one of the most successful and richest figures in the gambling business.
Lui Che Woo is the Top Casino Billionaire in Macau
The gambling capital of the world, culturally, might still be considered as Las Vegas. But, for around a decade or so now, the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Macau has been the global economic force of casino gambling. The city’s Cotai Strip is home to a dozen giant casino resorts, beating most in Las Vegas for size, scale, luxury and, crucially, revenue.
Few have made more money off casinos in Macau than Lui Che Woo. Galaxy Entertainment Group is the biggest local operator with its main casino resorts Galaxy Macau, Broadway Macau, and StarWorld Hotel. Woo is estimated to have a net worth of some $15 billion USD.
Although he built a relatively significant fortune in property development in Hong Kong in the 1960s, the main bulk of his billions has since come from the glittering casinos of Macau. He is also a significant philanthropist, for example he has offered a $30 million sustainability and green energy research and development grant every year since 2015, through the Lui Che Woo Prize.
Denise Coates Founded Bet365 and Has Since Been the UK’s Biggest Private Taxpayer
Back to England for the final gambling business figure of this list, with arguably one of the most influential and successful leaders in the online gambling space. In 2000 Denise Coates founded one of the first big online gambling operators in the UK – Bet365 – from a portable cabin office in a car park behind a betting store owned by her father as a part of a small local chain.
Sensing the possibilities of the burgeoning online gambling market, Coates convinced her father to sell up his physical betting premises and invest in her online gambling idea. 25 years later and Bet365 is a multibillion dollar business operating all overt the world. Coates is now worth some $7 billion. The company is still based in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, where it was first found, and Coates also owns the local soccer club Stoke City FC.
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