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Stanley Ho: how the Macau casino tycoon’s love life shaped his success
- Ho’s first marriage seems to have been a decisive factor in him winning Macau’s gambling monopoly, which lasted for almost four decades
- He had three other women he called his wives – and a complex network of family relations, sometimes shaken by fights over power and money
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Gambling tycoon Stanley Ho Hung-sun was one of those rare characters: a man envied and adored in equal parts. Women wanted him. Men wanted to be him.
Charming, elegant and a skilful dancer, the swashbuckling businessman was able to build from scratch an empire that was not limited to gambling. It included a diverse portfolio of investments that ranged from hotels to boats, in addition to his philanthropic work.
While maintaining unwavering amounts of wealth and influence in both Hong Kong and Macau, the dapper Ho, who was as lucky in love as he was with his gambling businesses, went on to father 16 children with four women he called his wives.
Ho’s romantic life alone could be turned into a thick page-turner, filled as it was with plot twists and colourful characters. But as is often the case, even for one of Asia’s richest men, it was his first love that seems to have stayed with him the longest.
The relationship Ho had with his first wife Clementina Angela Leitao – also known as Tininha and Li Wanhua – is a tale of both love and tragedy.
Born in 1921, Ho grew up in a two-house home on MacDonnell Road in the Mid-Levels, an affluent area of Hong Kong Island. Although he got to know the taste of comfort at an early age, his father eventually went bankrupt and the family fell into poverty while he was a teenager.
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