DALLAS — It's now official: Mark Cuban is attempting to sell a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to Las Vegas casino magnate Miriam Adelson and her family.
A statement issued by the Adelson family on Wednesday confirmed their intentions to purchase a majority share in the franchise. Cuban has not yet publicly commented on the deal.
Cuban will reportedly continue to run the NBA franchise's daily operations. But he'll no longer be the biggest money investor in the team.
That distinction will belong to Adelson, 78, and her family.
Adelson is a prominent figure in both Las Vegas and her native Israel.
She is perhaps best known as the widow of the late Sheldon Adelson, the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation.
Sheldon passed in 2021 at 87 years old.
Following her husband's passing, Adelson took over majority control of Las Vegas Sands Corp.
As of 2023, she and her family are estimated to have a net worth of $35 billion -- making her the fifth-richest woman in the world, according to Forbes.
Who is Miriam Adelson?
Adelson was born Miriam Farbstein on October 10, 1945, in Tel Aviv to Jewish parents who escaped Poland in the 1930s for what was then known as the British Mandate of Palestine. Her grandparents and extended family were reportedly killed in the Holocaust.
She was raised in the Israeli city of Haifa. As with all Israeli citizens, she served her mandatory army service with the Israel Defense Forces upon turning 18 years old, working as a medical research officer. During that time, she worked with sex workers in Israel who were suffering from addiction. That work would inform much of her later life.
Medical doctor
She earned a bachelor's degree in microbiology and genetics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, then received her MD at Tel Aviv Univeristy's Sackler Faculty of Medicine. Later, she would work as the chief internist in the emergency room at Tel Aviv’s Rokach Hospital.
In 1986, she came to the United States to study heroin addiction treatment at New York's Rockefeller University.
Around the same time, she divorced her first husband, physician Ariel Ochshorn, with whom she had two children.
In 1988, while at Rockefeller University, she met and began dating Sheldon Adelson -- a Boston native born to Jewish immigrant parents, and a burgeoning businessman -- shortly after the end of his own first marriage. The two were reportedly set up on a blind date.
Casino magnate
The same year the two started dating, Sheldon purchased the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, which he expanded in 1989 to also include the Sands Expo and Convention Center -- at the time of its construction the only privately owned and operated convention center in the U.S.
The two married in Jerusalem in 1991. As the lore goes, it was while honeymooning in Venice that Miriam came up with the idea of turning Sheldon's Las Vegas property into a mega-resort destination modeled after Venice, and featuring replicas of that city's canals and palazzos.
In 1996, Sheldon demolished the Sands Hotel and Casino. Three years later, the Venetian opened on those hallowed grounds.
Sheldon's success in Vegas would only foreshadow his success in Asia. In the '00s, he expanded his casino and convention center empire across the Pacific Ocean, opening China's first Las Vegas-style casino -- the Sands Macao -- in 2004. In 2010, Sheldon would open Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, further growing his Asian casino footprint.
Those investments paid off. According to Forbes, Sheldon increased his net worth by $15 billion to $37 billion in 2013 alone, largely off the success of his Asia casinos.
More recently, the family -- through their Las Vegas Sands Corp. -- has been pushing, unsuccessfully so far, for casinos to be able to legally operate in Texas. Mark Cuban openly has shared that same vision, even previously name-dropping Las Vegas Sands as a potential future partner for his interests in such operations.
Substance abuse researcher
In 1993, Adelson's work in the field of substance abuse led her to opening her first abuse center and research clinic in Tel Aviv, the city in which she was born. In 2000, she and her husband opened a similar clinic in their name -- the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Research Clinic -- in their adopted home of Las Vegas.
Beyond a long-time interest of Miriam's, the subject of substance abuse became personal to the Adelsons later in life: Sheldon's son Mitchell, from his first marriage, died of a drug overdose in 2005.
Forbes estimates that Adelson has donated more than $1 billion to medical research over the course of her lifetime.
GOP megadonor
As the Adelsons' pockets grew deeper, so too did their political influence -- particularly among Republicans.
During the 2020 election, the Adelsons were the single largest individual financial supporters of President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, donating $75 million to a super-PAC that spent heavily on ads supporting his return to the Oval Office.
Throughout the 2020 elections, the couple reportedly donated more than $172 million in all in support of GOP initiatives.
Just two years earlier, in 2018, the couple was reported to have spent $113 million in support of Republican causes during the mid-term elections.
The Adelsons also donated $20 million to Trump's original presidential campaign in 2016 after originally throwing their support behind Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida -- a move Trump openly mocked until the Adelsons switched their support to him.
In 2018, President Trump presented Miriam Adelson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- an honor bestowed upon those who have made "especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors," according to the White House.
Adelson, the White House said at the time, was being recognized as a "a committed doctor, philanthropist, and humanitarian," and a "committed member of the American Jewish community."
She was honored that year alongside Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Hall of Fame Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, among others -- including Elvis Presley, Babe Ruth and former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who were recognized posthumously.
Such a prominent GOP donor being recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom was widely criticized.
In the immediate aftermath of Sheldon's death in 2021, Miriam's financial political contributions dwindled significantly in the 2022 election -- although she retained her reputation as a kingmaker, continuing to take meetings with hopeful 2024 presidential candidates.
Even after Sheldon's passing, Miriam's support is still greatly sought among GOP candidates; earlier this year, she was seen dining with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Israel.
Pro-Israel advocate
As part of their political influence, the Adelsons regularly held court with Republican politicians and candidates in their properties along the Las Vegas Strip, reportedly most often to voice their support of pro-Israel causes.
The couple were long vocal supporters of moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem -- a change adamantly opposed by Palestinians. When President Trump followed through on the embassy's move to Israel in 2018, the Adelsons sat front and center at the dedication ceremony.
In the wake of that move, Miriam wrote an op-ed in which she said President Trump deserved his own "Book of Trump" in the Bible for all he'd done to support of Israel and Jews.
In 2007, the Adelsons founded the Adelson Family Charitable Foundation with the intention of donating $200 million annually to Jewish and Israeli causes -- including a pledge of $25 million a year to Birthright Israel, which provides free-of-charge pilgrimages to Israel for Jews who have never been to the country. (During the COVID-19 pandemic, those annual contributions significantly decreased, before bouncing back some in recent years.)
Other organizations the Adelsons have financially supported throughout the years include the Israeli-American Council, the Zionist Organization of America, the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial in Jerusalem, and various U.S. groups that fundraise for the Israeli military.
Just last week, Miriam published an op-ed for Forbes Israel in which she criticized coverage of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the western world in the immediate wake of Hamas' deadly attacks on Israel and amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
"The media described these displays as 'protests'," she wrote, in part. "But that was false: Israel had yet to repel the terrorists, let alone retaliate, so there was nothing to 'protest' against. No, those ghastly gatherings of radical Muslim and Black Lives Matter activists, ultra-progressives and career agitators were nothing short of street parties. They were celebrations, hallelujahs to the horrors."
Media mogul
As part of their ongoing commitment to pro-Israel causes, the Adelsons launched in 2007 a free weekly newspaper in Israel called Israel Hayom (or "Israel Today" in English).
In op-eds run in Israel Hayom, Adelson has from time to time taken issue with Israeli political policy. For the most part, however, the publication has been criticized for being overly supportive of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Later, in 2015, the Adelson family also purchased -- initially in secret -- the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the largest daily newspaper in their adopted American hometown. Their identities as the new owners were at first hidden from the public -- until reporters at the very paper the Adelsons had purchased worked to unveil their identities as the publication's buyers.
Buying the Las Vegas Review-Journal was largely viewed as an overt power play in Nevada, with the Adelsons seen as seeking to silence vocal critics of their actions and looking to impose their own views upon the public.
Many of the paper's longtime staffers resigned in protest of the purchase.
Miriam remains the owner of both the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Israel Hoyam to this day.
