March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Las Vegas Sands Corp., the world's biggest casino operator by market value, said it submitted a proposal to build a gaming resort in Singapore with a record investment of $3.6 billion.

The Marina Bay Sands will include 2,500 hotel rooms, 1.2 million square feet of convention space and 1 million square feet of shops, the company said in an e-mailed statement today. It said the cost would be a record for a gaming complex. Las Vegas Sands is competing with MGM Mirage, Harrah's Entertainment Inc. and Genting Bhd. to build Singapore's first casino.

Singapore lifted its ban on casinos a year ago to halt a decline in its share of the Asia-Pacific tourism market. The island-nation has already added attractions such as the Ministry of Sound dance club and the Crazy Horse Paris topless cabaret, part of plans to double the number of visitors and triple tourism revenue to S$30 billion ($19 billion) by 2015.

``All four bidders are competitive and it's going to be a tight race,'' said Pratik Burman Ray, an analyst at UOB-Kay Hian Research Pte in Singapore. He said the venture between MGM Mirage and CapitaLand Ltd. as well as that of Harrah's and Keppel Land Ltd. have a ``slightly higher chance'' of winning.

The two Las Vegas-based casino operators may have an edge over Las Vegas Sands because they have local partners. He has a ``buy'' recommendation for CapitaLand and Keppel Land shares, and is reviewing the rating after their share prices surged.

`Economic Priorities'

Las Vegas Sands said its bid will work with the government's plan to boost tourism.

The proposal will ``unequivocally meet the economic priorities of Singapore,'' Sheldon G. Adelson, 72, chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands, said in the statement.

The company's bid is higher than the S$5 billion Malaysian rival Genting announced yesterday at the government's deadline. Both Harrah's and MGM Mirage have declined to comment on their investments.

The proposed investment is also more than the record $2.7 billion that Las Vegas billionaire Steve Wynn spent on Wynn Las Vegas, which opened in April.

Singapore competes with Asian cities from Hong Kong to Shanghai that are adding convention centers and theme parks to draw travelers. The city-state plans to build two gaming resorts, including another on the southern island of Sentosa, in an attempt to replicate the success of casinos in Macau, where they generated $5.76 billion of gaming revenue in 2005.

Macau

Las Vegas Sands, owner of the Venetian casino, is building the 10.5-million-square-foot Venetian Macao on Macau's Cotai Strip. The development will include eight entertainment arenas, 10,000 hotel rooms, casinos and meeting spaces. The Venetian Macao will open in 2007. The company owns the Sands Macao, the first Western casino in the Chinese city.

Las Vegas Sands said it plans to open the Singapore gaming resort in 2009 and it will include three entertainment centers and a club for high-stakes gamblers. Singapore has defined that market as those who spend more than S$100,000 and has offered a tax rate of 5 percent, the lowest in the world, for high-rollers. Gaming revenue from other gamblers would be taxed at 15 percent.

The company, which had earlier planned to include a Guggenheim museum as part of its bid, said in a separate statement today its proposal will instead have ``a museum which boasts both cultural and populist exhibits, and may include exhibits curated by Guggenheim.'' It didn't elaborate.

Middle East

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels Plc, a U.K. hotel chain controlled by Singapore billionaire Kwek Leng Beng, said it would work with Las Vegas Sands to bring conventions from the Middle East to the Singapore resort.

The company has contracts to manage eight hotels under its Millennium brand name in the Middle East and North Africa, and expects to increase that to as many as 35 in three years, said Ali Lakhraim, the company's president for the Middle East and Africa. Las Vegas Sands could tap into that network to compete with other convention destinations, he said.

``Dubai has been taking a lot of the big conferences from Singapore,'' Lakhraim told reporters in Singapore today. ``With Sands, you have a very good story to sell because of their experience in the MICE business.'' MICE is short for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions.

Adelson is known for building the world's biggest trade show and said in December he plans to duplicate his success in conventions in the Singapore bid. Adelson developed COMDEX for the computer industry and sold off the company that owns the trade show to Softbank Corp. of Japan for more than $860 million in 1995, according to the Las Vegas Sands Web site.

Kwek's City Developments Ltd., the parent company of Millennium & Copthorne, pulled out of an earlier plan to invest 15 percent in Las Vegas Sands' bid because of ``regulatory'' reasons upon which it didn't elaborate.

Shares of Las Vegas Sands climbed $1.39, or 2.5 percent, to $56.72 at 4:17 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linus Chua in Singapore at lchua@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 30, 2006 16:31 EST