Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s Sheldon Adelson has had quite a 2008! Year-to-date his net worth has decreased by $30 BILLION. And we thought Indian billionaire Lakshi Mittal, he with his $50 billion in five months worth of losses, was alone in having a major league sucky time of it—as far as billionaires go. Looks like he has some company!

WSJ: ...his net worth declined by about $100 million a day, or $4.1 million an hour, or $69,000 a minute, or $1,157 a second.

It is possible Mr. Adelson now may hold the title for the largest one-year paper loss in U.S. history.

..Even looking further back in history, it is hard to find personal wealth destruction quite like Adelson’s. In the Great Depression, the Rockefeller’s lost about half their wealth, totaling about $1 billion. But that was over a period of years, and even adjusting for inflation–about 14 times 1930 dollars–that loss is pocket change compared with that of Mr. Adelson.

What is more, while the losses of Messrs. Buffett, Brin, Page and Gates represent a fraction of their wealth, Mr. Adelson’s net worth has shrunk a staggering 93%.