Aaron Tam / AFP - Getty Images

Sheldon Adelson, center, watches a lion dance at the opening ceremony of the Sands Cotai Central in Macau on Thursday.

MACAU -- Billionaire Sheldon Adelson said on Wednesday he plans to spend $35 billion on a mini-Las Vegas strip in Spain where he is courting the country's two top urban areas, Barcelona and Madrid, with plans for a casino complex.

Adelson, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp, was speaking at a press conference ahead of the opening of his new $4 billion casino property in Macau, the world's largest casino destination.

"We are looking at 12 integrated resorts, 3,000 rooms each. A mini Las Vegas, about half the size of the Las Vegas strip in Spain for the European market," said Adelson, one of the world's richest men worth an estimated $25 billion according to Forbes.

Each building would cost between $2.5 and $3 billion and the company would target customers from Western and Eastern Europe in addition to the former Soviet bloc.

Adelson did not address the debt crisis that has gripped Europe, but he has said that the complex in Spain would be a five to 10-year project, by which time he expected demand to have picked up significantly.

36,000 hotel beds
Las Vegas Sands said in February that it was studying an investment of as much as 15 billion euros ($20 billion) over 10 years in a casino complex in Spain that would include 36,000 hotel beds, 18,000 slot machines and three golf courses.

On his Asian expansion plans, Adelson said he would continue to develop integrated resorts in the region after the success of his Macau and Singapore properties.

"We are looking to build two each in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Taiwan is late in catching up. There is pending legislation in the other three countries," he said.

Under its $31 billion Macau unit, Sands China Ltd, the group already has two casinos open in the former Portuguese colony.

The new Sands Cotai Central, erected beside Adelson's Italian-themed Venetian, cost twice that of local player Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd's Galaxy Macau, which opened last year.

The new property will add 5,800 hotel rooms to Macau's supply constrained market, as well as 300,000 square feet of gambling space and 1.2 million square feet of shopping, entertainment, dining and convention facilities.

The property will house the Conrad, Sheraton and Holiday Inn hotel brands. Conrad and Holiday Inn will open immediately, while the Sheraton will open in the second half.

Shares in Sands China were down 3 percent on Wednesday, lagging a 1.3 percent drop in the benchmark Hong Kong index.

Adelson's Singapore casino, Marina Bay Sands, is one of the most profitable in the world.

Macau, the only place where Chinese nationals are legally allowed to gamble in casinos, said gambling revenue surged 24.4 percent in March to 25 billion patacas ($3.1 billion), in line with forecasts.

About 37 miles from Hong Kong, Macau has thrived as a flood of affluent mainland visitors have flocked to the properties of the enclave's six licensed operators that include Las Vegas tycoons Steve Wynn and Adelson.

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Sorry, but that $57 million you thought you won at the slots? Computer error.

That was the message that a casino in Bregenz, Austria, gave to Behar Merlaku, 26, after he got a really exciting return on a slot machine, the UK's Daily Mail reported.

Merlaku got only four of the slot machine's five required matches, but a winning bell went off and a flashing screen told him he had won the big jackpot on March 26, the Daily Mail said. But when the Swiss man tried to claim the prize, the casino operators blamed a software error and offered him $100 and a meal instead.

Now his lawyers say he's entitled to the huge prize and he plans to sue Casinos Austria AG; a court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 10. The Daily Mail said it's thought that such a civil action would be the largest of its kind anywhere in the world and the case is being keenly watched by gaming operators.

His lawyers say that when he refused the casino's offer, he was banned from the establishment. They say that the company said the slot machine manufacturer was responsible and cited Austrian law that jackpots cannot normally be higher than two million euros, the Daily Mail reported.