DALLAS — The NBA on Wednesday approved the sale of Mark Cuban’s controlling stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the families that run the Las Vegas Sands casino company.
The deal was approved just a month after the families of Miriam Adelson and Sivan and Patrick Dumont announced their intention to buy the club. The market is in the $3.5 billion valuation range.
Patrick Dumont, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands and Adelson’s son-in-law, will serve as the Mavericks’ captain. Adelson she is the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
Cuban is expected to retain control of the basketball operations, and there is no indication that the club will leave Dallas.
Cuban said he wanted to work with Las Vegas Sands on a long-term plan to build an arena in downtown Dallas that would include a hotel and casino.
Gambling is not legal in Texas, and efforts to legalize it face great odds. However, Miriam Adelson has made no secret of her push to bring casino gambling to the Lone Star State.
He gave more than $2 million last year to a political action committee, called Texas Sands, which has donated lavishly to state lawmakers and bombarded the GOP-controlled state Capitol with lobbyists. He gave an additional $1 million separately to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
But the spending spree failed to achieve a breakthrough this year in the Texas Legislature, where resistance to casino legalization runs deep.
Texas already has a billionaire NBA owner who is a casino operator, Houston Rockets captain Tilman Fertitta. Fertitta also supports the creation of casinos in his home state, but has seen lawmakers sink the idea year after year.
News of the Mavs sale broke last month, hours after Las Vegas Sands announced that Adelson was selling $2 billion of its stock to buy an unspecified professional sports team.