Inside Asian Gaming

April 2014 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 37 FEATURE that motivate his political giving—and that they did not make formal presentations or lay out policy agendas. “It’s literally Diet Cokes, coffee and water,” Mr Abboud said. “It’s not about your positions and what you’ll do about it, but about everything—your families, your trips. It’s important to Sheldon to know what makes people tick and to establish a comfort level.” Mr Abboud said Mr Adelson is keeping an open mind about whom to back in 2016, although he favors those seen as most likely to appeal to broad demographics and to prevail in the general election. “People are waiting for us to have puffs of smoke coming from the Venetian, looking to see who the candidate will be,” Mr Abboud said. “It’s a very open field as to who they’re considering, and it’s way too premature to figure out who the favorite is.” The potential presidential candidates, none of whom is Jewish, found creative ways to emphasize their strong support for Israel and Jewish traditions during the RJC meeting, reported the Washington Post . Gov. Walker talked about his father’s first pilgrimage to Israel in the 1980s. The governor said that at home during the holidays, he displays both a Christmas tree and a menorah. And he said that he had named his first son Matthew, which is translated in Hebrew as “gift of God.” Gov. Christie spoke at length about a recent trip he took to Israel with his family. He said he was taken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “strength and resolve.” When he met Israeli President Shimon Peres, Gov. Christie said, “I felt like he had walked out of a history book.” Gov. Christie also quipped that he likes traveling to Israel because, he said, the country is “about the same size as New Jersey.” Mr Adelson and his wife, Miriam, spent more than $93 million in the 2012 elections and have signaled they will spend heavily in the next presidential campaign. “It’s really simple. This ban on all Internet gaming would make American families and consumers less safe online,” said Mary Bono, a Republican former House member who chairs the American Gaming Association’s recently formed Coalition for Consumer and Online Protection supports, and now online gambling. He became a major player in Republican politics in the 2012 elections when he spent more than $93 million in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Democratic President Barack Obama, and it’s expected that he’ll be writing massive checks again in this year’s congressional elections and in the 2016 campaign for the White House.