Legacy Matters

"The Man who moved a mountain"

The man who funded the Pequot Indians in Connecticut when they wanted to build a casino died yesterday.  The Pequots had gone to  35 banks and investment houses and were turned down when they turned overseas to Malay-Chinese entrepreneur who became a billionaire by developing Genting Highlands, a casino in the highlands of the Muslim country of Malaysia. 

Genting Highlands, the mountaintop casino and resort complex close to Kuala Lumpur, illustrates Malaysia's grudging relationship with gambling and, some have argued, with its entire Chinese community of 7.3 million. Lim Goh Tong, its creator, was granted permission to build a casino “on a 1,700m mountain, out of sight and out of mind”, as one journalist put it, in return for helping to build a tourist infrastructure in the newly independent federation. As his gambling retreat grew and grew — becoming “the Las Vegas of Malaysia” — it became an ever-greater affront to the Muslim majority but ever-more indispensable to a government in need of money.

His bet on Indian gaming in the United States was prescient.  The rest is history.  Foxwoods, now the world's largest casino, takes in an estimated $1 billion in revenue each year.

Lim Goh Tong's obituary in the London Telegraph has no mention of the role he played in the United States though the London Times obit does.