Gambling King Stanley Ho Dies Aged 98

Macau gambling magnate Stanley Ho, one of Asia's richest men and a political powerbroker, has died at the age of 98.

Relatives of the Hong Kong-born tycoon held a press conference on Tuesday afternoon to confirm the news, with daughter Pansy saying Ho had died peacefully in his sleep at the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital.

Another of Ho's daughter, Angela, said although the family knew this day would come, "it does not lessen our sorrow and our father will always be there in our hearts".

A member of the prominent Ho Tung clan, Ho arrived in the then Portuguese colony of Macau during the second world war with less than HK$1 in his pocket.

But with physical courage, cunning, wit -- and connections -- he secured a 40-year monopoly on gambling in the former enclave, turning himself into a billionaire several times over.

As well as casinos, his business empire -- including construction, property and a fleet of jetfoils -- stretched from Portugal to Pyongyang.

At the heart of it all was his flagship, Macau's Lisboa Hotel, a warren of gaming rooms, restaurants, massage parlours and other pleasures of the flesh, all wrapped in the shape of a birdcage -- a circular design intended to keep the money moving, but always trapped inside.

According to lore, a young Ho had earned his first million from smuggling luxury goods into Guangdong.

It had also been long rumoured, though never confirmed, that he helped smuggle weapons to North Korea.

Whatever the truth, he developed relationships and established patriotic bona fides with Beijing that greatly assisted his career.

Ho, who had 17 children born to four women, had been in the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital for almost a decade since his health deteriorated following a stroke in 2009.