Nope. Next question?
Just kidding, although the answer really is "no." We're always somewhat wary of answering questions such as this, since finding the definitive answer to any such claim is notoriously difficult. For example, the QoD for 2/18/11 tackled the subject of the whereabouts of the largest chandelier in the world, an accolade apparently claimed at some point by someone at Caesars Palace. It turned out several illuminated-glass creations around the world have been contenders for the title, with more than one of them bearing little resemblance to anything we'd describe as a chandelier.
Similarly, just here in Las Vegas, we have Sapphire Gentlemen's Club still claiming to be the largest strip club in the world, when it's pretty widely accepted that Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, also in Las Vegas, is larger, although ironically it makes no such claim. The Bonanza Gift Store has long styled itself the world's largest, but who knows? And any queries with regard to largest hotels or casinos are especially slippery customers, since rooms come in and out of service, slot machines are moved, pits opened and closed and, quite frankly, impressive but not necessarily true claims made in the interests of publicity, because who's actually going to count the rooms or measure the casino floor for the sake of disproving PR hyperbole (unless it's the second-largest trying to establish its precedence).
You might think that a measure such as "world's largest building" would be more clear-cut. Think again! We checked out that term on Wikipedia and found out there are many ways to skin that particular cat. For example, if you're talking about largest usable space, by volume, that mantle goes (according to this list) to the Boeing Everett Factory in Washington, at 472 million cu feet. The runner-up is the Target Import Warehouse, also in Washington, which boasts 262.4 million cu ft of usable space.
However, if you're defining "largest" in terms of the biggest footprint, then the Boeing factory comes in at #2, behind the Aalsmeer Flower Auction in the Netherlands, which covers 518,000 m² (apologies for the inconsistency in measurements but the square footage wasn't quoted for this European monster, which this writer happens to have filmed at and can vouch for the fact that it holds one helluva lot of tulips). It almost dwarfs the Boeing Everett facility, which covers a mere 398,000 m². At this juncture, we can reveal that Venetian Macau didn't even get a mention on either of these two Top-10 lists (actually, for some inexplicable reason, the largest-footprint list only includes the Top Nine, but Venetian Macau wasn't among them).
However, when it comes to largest floor area, Venetian Macau does finally get a nod, albeit in the #7 spot, with the New Century Global Centre in Chengdu, China claiming poll position at 18.94 million sq ft (1,760,000 m²). Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport comes in a close second, at 18.44 million sq ft (1,713,000 m²) -- almost double Venetian Macau's 10.5 million sq ft.
Interestingly, Sheldon Adelson evidently has a liking for big things, with no less than three of his resort-casino properties making the Top 30 on this list. One spot below Venetian Macau comes its Sands Cotai sister property, which has 9.5 million sq ft of floor space. Las Vegas' Palazzo comes in at #11, with 6.9 million sq ft of floor space, which makes it the largest building in the U.S., by that measure -- an accolade previously held by the Pentagon, which Palazzo displaced to the tune of about 383,000 square feet when it debuted in 2007.
As an aside, according to statistics compiled by Bloomberg Businessweek, CasinoCityTimes.com, and Casino City Press’ Gaming Business Directory, Venetian Macau also takes second prize on the list of the world's 10 largest casino floors, the top three being as follows:
1. Potowatomi Bingo Casino; Milwaukee, Wis.: 780,000 sq. ft. 2. Venetian Macao: 546,000 sq. ft. 3. Casino de Montréal: 526,488 sq. ft.
Of course, none of these examples actually cites the name of the person who did the actual measuring, so we have no proof as to the veracity, or otherwise, of any of these claims. But somewhere has to be the largest, right? It just isn't Venetian Macau, as far as we can tell.
