Also known as Ho Hung-sun, Stanley Ho Hung-sun is an entrepreneur in Hong Kong and Macau. Ho is sometimes nicknamed "The King of Gambling", reflecting the government-granted monopoly he held of the Macau gambling industry for over 35 years. Chairman of the Shun Tak Grouo.

Ho is the wealthiest person in Macau, and one of the wealthiest in Asia. According to Forbes, he ranked 84th among the world's richest people in 2006, with an estimated net worth of $6.5 billion USD. He owns many properties in both Hong Kong and Macau and has taken part in many kinds of business including entertainment, tourism, shipping, real estate, banking, and air transport.
As for his businesses:
• their income constitutes about one-third of the gross domestic product of Macau;
• in 2003, taxes on them accounted for about 30% of the Macau government's revenue;
• they are collectively the largest corporate employer in Macau, with more than ten thousand employees.
Apart from Hong Kong and Macau, he has also invested in Portugal, North Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Ho is also a famous industrialist and entrepreneur in Asia, and he held a number of important positions in many firms in Hong Kong and Macau. His opinions and statements on Hong Kong's estate and commercial development have considerable sway on the marke

Has 17 children and some of them are also famous in Hong Kong and Macau. Pansy Ho Chiu-king director of STDM (Macao's former gambling monopoly, and still one of its biggest players), is known for her excellence in the business; she is a 50/50 partner in the MGM Macau. Josie Ho Chiu-yi pop singer and actress, has released a number of albums and took part in many movies.

From Wikipedia:

Stanley Ho, GBM, GLM, GBS, GML, OBE (born 25 November 1921), also known as Ho Hung Sun,Stanley Ho Hung Sun, is Hong Kong and Macanese business magnate. Ho is sometimes nicknamed "The King of Gambling", reflecting the government-granted monopoly he held of the Macau gambling industry for 40 years. In 2011 he was the 13th richest man in Hong Kong with a net worth of US$2 billion.[1] He is also Macau's wealthiest person and amongst the wealthiest in Asia. He owns many properties in both Hong Kong and Macau and has taken part in many kinds of business including entertainment, tourism, shipping,real estate, banking, and air transport. It is also estimated that his enterprises employ almost one fourth of the workforce of Macau.
Apart from Hong Kong and Macau, he has also invested in mainland China, Portugal, North Korea,Vietnam, the Philippines, Mozambique and East Timor.
Ho is also an industrialist and entrepreneur in Asia and has held a number of important positions in many firms in Hong Kong and Macau. His opinions and statements on Hong Kong's real estate and commercial development have considerable sway on the market. In the past few years he has been involved in litigation with his own sister, Winnie Ho, concerning the ownership of the Macau casino. Having suffered a stroke in July 2009, followed by a long period of recovery, Ho began steps in late 2010, subsequently hotly disputed and in confusing circumstances (January 2011), to devolve his grip on his financial empire to his various wives and children.
Early life
Ho Fook (何福), Stanley Ho's grandfather, was a brother of Robert Hotung. Ho Sai Kwong (何世光), one of Ho Fook's sons, had 13 children, of which Stanley was the 9th child.
Although his family was very wealthy, he started his business on his own.
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Education
Ho studied at Queen's College, Hong Kong, at which he attended Class D - the lowest class level in the Hongkong Class System - owing to unsatisfactory academic results. After realizing that studying assiduously was the only way to improve his social status, his hard work paid off and earned him a scholarship to the University of Hong Kong.[2] He became the first student from Class D to be granted a university scholarship. He was unable to finish his university study, however, because of the outbreak of World War II. In 1942, he fled from the Japanese and settled in Macau.
Career
Macau Tower
Ho began clerical work at a Japanese-owned import-export firm in Macau. With his talents and command of four languages, he won the trust of his employers and quickly became a partner of the firm, at the age of 22.
Ho made his first fortune smuggling luxury goods across the Chinese border from Macau during World War II, according to Joe Studwell's book "Asian Godfathers".[3] In the same text there are very clear references that point to criminal activities directly related to cronyism and political manipulation. Stanley Ho collaborated with the Japanese during occupation in Hong Kong and also cooperated with the PRC Communists during the Cold War. An unnamed source also claims he was seated at the head of the ballrooms during official ceremonies in colonial Hong Kong, a fact that could be explained by his cooperation with the Japanese during the occupation.
In 1943, he set up a kerosene company and established a construction company with his money. As the construction industry in Hong Kong was experiencing a period of rapid growth, Ho profited greatly.
Ho, along with partners, including Hong Kong tycoon the late Henry Fok, renowned Macau gambler the late Yip Hon and his brother-in-law the late Teddy Yip, bid for Macau franchises. By bidding high and promising to promote tourism and to develop infrastructure, they won the public tender for Macau's gaming monopoly at a cost of approximately (US?)$410,000[clarification needed], defeating the longtime Macau casino barons, the Fu family. In 1961, the company was renamed Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, S.A.R.L. (STDM). Business at its flagship Lisboa Casino Hotelblossomed, the hotel later to become well-known internationally.
In the same year, Ho also set up Shun Tak Holdings Ltd, which was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Through a subsidiary, TurboJET, it owns one of the world's largest fleets of high-speed jetfoils, which ferries passengers between Hong Kong and Macau.
Ho's investments in Macau are diverse. In 1989, after STDM took full control of the Macau Jockey Club, Ho became its chairman and chief executive officer. In 1998, Ho became the first living Macanese resident to have a local street named after him. He also launched Asia's first footballand basketball lottery called SLOT. Ho also launched the DrHo888.com web site, an online casino operated in partnership with Vancouver-based eyeball.com.
Ho was also named by the Canadian Government, citing the Manila Standard newspaper, as having a link to the Kung Lok Triad (Chinese mafia) and as being linked to 'several illegal activities'.[4]during the period 1999–2002. Ho's ties to Chinese organized crime have also been reported by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, citing a U.S. Senate committee and several government agencies, when the state investigated his ties to American casino operator MGM Mirage.[5]

Personal life
Ho has 17 children born to four women. He refers to his children's mothers as his wives.[6] Polygamy remained legal in Hong Kong until 1971. Also, he was rumoured to have numerous undisclosed relationships.
In 1942, Ho married his first wife, Clementina Leitao, a woman from a prestigious Portuguese family – her grandfather was a lawyer and was Macau's only notary public at the time. They had four children. In the late 1950s, Ho met Lucina Laam King-ying, whom he legally married in Hong Kong, in 1962. Leitao was involved in a motor vehicle accident in 1973, and suffered partial memory loss as a result. Following her car accident, Leitao needed constant nursing care; Ina Chan, who became Ho's third 'wife' in 1985 and with whom Ho has had three children, was one of the nurses brought in to look after her. In 1981, Ho's and Leitao's son Robert and daughter-in-law, Melanie Susan Potier ("Suki"), died in a car accident; Leitao died in 2004. Fourth 'wife' Angela Leong On-kei, with whom Ho has had five children, met Ho in 1988 at a private ball.[7]
Ho handed over the reins of STDM to daughter Pansy Ho, who is also a 50 percent partner in MGM Macau; son Lawrence Ho is the CEO of Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd, another Macau-based casino company. Josie Ho (何超儀) is a rock singer and award-winning actress. His grandchildren are a perennial subject of local social columns and paparazzi.
Over the years, dancing has been one of Ho's favourite hobbies, achieving excellence in tango, cha-cha-cha, and waltz. He often danced for televised charity fundraisers and has sponsored numerous dance performances in Hong Kong and Macau, including the Hong Kong Arts Festival and the Macau Arts Festival, promoting the art of dance. He has also invited internationally renowned dancing groups, such as the National Ballet of China, to perform in Hong Kong and Macau. Ho is a patron of the Hong Kong Ballet, the International Dance Teachers Association and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Dance.
A thoroughbred racehorse owner, one of Ho's runners, Viva Pataca, named after the currency of Macau, won several top Hong Kong races in 2006 and 2007.
Ho suffered a fall late in July 2009 at his home and required brain surgery as a result. For seven months Ho was confined to the Hong Kong Adventist Hospital and, later, the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, making only one public appearance on 20 December 2009, when he travelled to Macau to meet Chinese president Hu Jintao on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Macau's return to Chinese sovereignty. Ho was discharged from the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital on 6 March 2010 and has since used a wheelchair.[

Stanley Ho, flamboyant 'godfather' of Macau casinos, dies aged 98
Considered the father of modern gambling in China, Ho had a four-decade monopoly on Macau’s casinos
Guardian staff and agencies
Tue 26 May 2020 10.57 BST
First published on Tue 26 May 2020 08.25 BST


The Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho has died, his daughter Pansy Ho has said. He was 98.
The billionaire and bon vivant was considered the father of modern gambling in China. He had a four-decade monopoly on casinos in Macau and maintained his dominance after its industry opened to foreign companies.
He spent lavishly while wielding great influence both in Macau and in neighbouring Hong Kong while, according to US authorities, maintaining ties to organised crime.
He fathered 17 children with four wives, and his extended family engaged in high-profile squabbles over his empire during his later years.
Ho died at the Hong Kong Sanatorium hospital in Hong Kong.
“My father has passed away peacefully just now at around 1pm at Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital,” Pansy Ho told reporters. “As Stanley Ho’s family member, we are really sad to inform you of this.”
Ho was instrumental in turning the semi-autonomous city on China’s southern coastline into a gambling boomtown. Though Chinese authorities ended his Macau casino monopoly in 2002, SJM Holdings – the company he founded – now operates 21 casinos in Macau and several others elsewhere in Asia, including one in North Korea.
Over the years his casinos were widely believed to be linked to organised crime syndicates, specifically the 14K and Sun Yee On triad societies. The Ho family has always denied these accusations and they have never been proved. In 2010, after a long investigation, the New Jersey gaming authorities issued a report declaring a link between Stanley Ho and the triads and requiring that MGM Mirage Macau (a joint venture with Ho) divest its interest in an Atlantic City casino
The 74-page report declared that Stanley Ho Hung-sun was an associate of known and suspected triads who had permitted “organised crime to operate and thrive within his casinos”. It found that the private VIP gambling rooms Ho introduced to his casinos beginning in the 1980s “provided organised crime the entry into the Macau gaming market that it had previously lacked”.
Ho, full name Ho Hung-sun, was born into the rogue branch of Hong Kong’s famed Ho Tung clan. He made an early fortune smuggling luxury goods across the border between China and Macau during the second world war and invested his profits in kerosene and construction businesses, before bidding for the gambling monopoly that was tendered by the Macanese government.
Ho’s great-grandfather, Charles Bosman (aka Ho Sze Man) was a successful Dutch-Jewish entrepreneur in mid-19th century Hong Kong, and his cousins included Bruce Lee.
China’s state broadcaster, CCTV, described Ho as a “patriotic entrepreneur”. Ho monopolised the gaming industry until 2002, when the government introduced foreign investors sparking a boom which saw casino takings contribute to about 80% of Macau’s annual revenue and overtake Las Vegas.
His Sociedade de Jogos de Macau Holdings (SJM) empire remains a major player in Macau, the only place in China where casinos are allowed. The company took a hit alongside its competitors after China’s president, Xi Jinping, launched a high-profile corruption crackdown in 2014, triggering a dramatic decline in high-rollers to Macau.
While many of Hong Kong’s tycoons have rags to riches backstories, Ho initially had a gilded start to life. He was the great-nephew of one of Asia’s first tycoons, Robert Hotung, an influential Eurasian businessman and philanthropist who was among Hong Kong’s wealthiest individuals at the turn of the 20th century.
Ho said he had never wagered a bet, even while his casinos continued to rake in billions in revenues annually. He also added to his wealth through a property and shipping empire.
A flamboyant entrepreneur, philanthropist and keen ballroom dancer, Ho first married in 1942 but subsequently had three other partners with whom he had children. Local media said it was unclear whether or not he had married all the women he called his “wives”.
Bloomberg estimates his family empire to be worth $14.9bn (£11.4bn) and a spat between rival factions in 2011 became front page news before it ended with an agreement.
Ho was reluctant to retire and only officially stepped down from SJM in 2018 at the age of 96, handing over the reins to his daughter Daisy and Angela Leong, his fourth wife.
Hong Kong boasts one of the highest concentrations of billionaires in the world, but the city is also shot through with inequality, fuelled by a lack of housing, sky-high rents and low wages for blue-collar jobs.
• Reporting by Anne Davies, AFP, AAP and Associated Press