LAS Vegas Sands Corp, operator of Asia's biggest gambling resort, will consider spending US$12 billion to build a strip of casinos in India similar to its project in Macau, Chairman Sheldon Adelson said yesterday.

"We would like to build a Cotai Strip in India," Adelson told reporters at a briefing in Macau. "We would be happy to spend US$12 billion there" if India invites the company, he said.

Adelson didn't give details of the potential investment. India has only one legal casino in Goa, a state on the western Malabar Coast.

Las Vegas Sands is investing more than US$15 billion building casinos in Singapore and in Macau, the only place in China where casinos are legal, as gambling revenue growth in its home market slows. The company and rival Wynn Resorts Ltd are vying for the casino market in Asia, where economic growth is faster than in the United States and Europe, according to Bloomberg News.

The Cotai Strip, modeled on the Las Vegas Strip, is on reclaimed land between Macau's Coloane and Taipa Islands. Adelson plans to build as many as 14 hotels there by 2013, he said during the opening of the Four Seasons Macao, its second property in the district.

The Four Seasons will be part of a complex of hotels that will have over 1 million square feet (92,903 square meters) of gambling space, 3 million square feet of shops and nearly 21,000 hotel rooms.

Macau's gambling revenue, which overtook the Las Vegas Strip in 2006, may reach US$15 billion this year and surpass the combined total between Vegas and Atlantic City.