Marina Bay Sands is Adelson's new jewel in the crown

The Venetian Macao is the world's biggest casino in the world's biggest casino market - but owner Sheldon Adelson now has a new jewel in his crown.

Despite record earnings in the third quarter, profit at the Venetian Macao has already been surpassed by Singapore's newly opened Marina Bay Sands.

Marina Bay Sands' first full quarter in business saw operating profit of US$166.22 million on storming gambling volumes, mainly from Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian punters, Adelson's Las Vegas Sands announced yesterday.

That was enough to trump Hong Kong-listed subsidiary Sands China's three-year-old Venetian Macao, a favourite of mainland high rollers and day trippers, whose operating income of US$156.87 million was a quarterly record and represented a rise of 64 per cent from a year earlier.

The strong early results at Marina Bay Sands suggest Adelson's massive US$6.3 billion bet on the Singapore casino is poised to pay off in spades, and help boost Las Vegas Sands to its first quarterly net profit since 2007 during the July to September quarter.

'We are sailing in uncharted waters in Singapore and we don't see any let-up in the growth,' Adelson, the Las Vegas Sands chairman and majority shareholder, said yesterday on a conference call.

Marina Bay Sands soft-launched in April as the second half of the Lion City's gambling duopoly after Genting Group's Resorts World Sentosa, which opened in February.