Count to Eight Billion!

The cloud of smoke has settled since the big blast on the Las Vegas Strip earlier this week. The Frontier Hotel and Casino now a pile of ruins, a new hotel and casino (and shopping mall and luxury condominiums) is planned to open at the site.

The project is an $8 billion investment and is scheduled to open in 2011. who was willing to put so much money towards such an extravagant project and bet on a return so far into the future?

If you followed the lines that connected the explosives on the one end and the trigger on the other, you would have seen two men smiling in their best suits. The two were Elad Group owner Isaac Tshuva and IDB Group owner Nochi Dankner.

Mr. Tshuva is an Israeli real estate developer whose most famous project to date is the Plaza hotel in New York. Unsurprisingly, the Las Vegas project is also under the Plaza brand. "The new project will exude the same elegance and grandeur that the Plaza in New York is known for," Tshuva said.

Tshuva has teamed up with fellow Israeli businessman Nochi Dankner. He already owns the biggest mobile phone provider in Israel, a large supermarket chain and other businesses.

Both Tshuva and Dankner are now expanding overseas.

Israel is not only a small country with 7 million citizens. It also lacks the open borders and peaceful relations that would allow it to do business in neighboring countries. Hence the entrepreneurs' acquisitions, holdings and development projects overseas.

IDB's Clal Insurance Enterprises has spent $61 million for a stake in Titanium Asset Management, based in Florida. Other Israeli companies (Africa Israel Investments is one noteworthy example; others include Delek Group and Israel Corp.) have also made acquisitions abroad in recent years.

Still remaining is the particular investment - in Las Vegas. Not only is the industry showing its first ever signs of a slowdown (a 4.4% decline in business in August 2007 compared to the same month a year before), Las Vegas is facing new competition from Indian reservations and online casinos.

With new projects under development - MGM Mirage's CityCenter, Boyd Gaming Corp's Echelon, and Wynn Resorts Ltd's Encore - it also faces competition across the street. Which could be a good sign the industry is sprawling.