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Ángel de la Peña, a Spanish government worker, is seriously considering the once unthinkable: converting some of his savings from euros to British pounds.

Alvaro Saavedra Lopez, a senior executive for I.B.M. in Spain, says many of his corporate counterparts across the country are similarly looking for safer havens by transferring their spare cash to stronger euro zone countries like Germany “on a daily basis.”

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Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate and the chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, has plans to build a replica of Las Vegas complex in Spain. The financial entrepreneur has already made clear in public statements that Eurovegas be built in Spain, although without specifying yet what the final location. Up to now two cities have been competing to get the opportunity and Madrid has stepped up a little. As the limit on the height of buildings in Barcelona will be a real obstacle for the project in Catalonia, the company turned their eyes to Madrid. Both city delegations and the Minister of Economy of the Community, Percival Manglano got together with Adelson to discuss further details about Spanish legislation and investment process.

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US tycoon Sheldon Adelson has announced a $35 billion investment on massive Vegas-style casino complexes in Madrid and Barcelona. The project is still in the planning stage, but has drawn the ire of civil action groups who claim it will turn the cities in

"We are looking at twelve integrated resorts, 3,000 rooms each. A mini Las Vegas, about half the size of the Las Vegas strip in Spain for the European market," Adelson said at a press conference in Macau.

Adelson also said he hopes for some concessions from Madrid and Barcelona that would help to accommodate such an enormous project. He suggested loosening employment laws and fast-tracking planning regulations for the complex’s skyscrapers.

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It sounds almost too good to be true: at a time when one in four Spaniards are out of work, for the last few months US casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson has been weighing up whether to build a $21bn (£13.3bn) tourist-cum-gambling resort, which is being dubbed "EuroVegas", outside Madrid or Barcelona. And the city that is chosen for what it is claimed will be Europe's biggest-ever such resort may feel it has hit employment's jackpot: EuroVegas, it is claimed, will create up to 250,000 new jobs.

Madrid appears to be well ahead. Earlier this month Mr Adelson made an unannounced visit to a possible site outside the capital. Flying in by private jet from Israel, he and his wife Miriam Ochshorn made an hour-long on-site inspection of the possible site near the capital's dormitory town of Alcorcón.

By the time the Madrid government had officially confirmed the visit, Mr Adelson, having spent no more than four hours in Spain, was en route to his Las Vegas home. A definitive decision is expected before the end of May.

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Adelson started looking at Spain as a possible site for a European gambling magnet in 2007, but his proposals fell flat with the then-ruling Socialist Party.

But since the more business-friendly Popular Party took power, and combined with the downturn, Adelson's plans are said to be back on track.

'There is no one place in Europe that is fun to go to and play the slots or play tables or have a good time with an adult couple or family,' Adelson said in a meeting with investors in New York last September.

The hotels and casinos and all the rest would be built in three phases over the course of 10 years. Adelson says the project would create 260,000 jobs, 190,000 of them directly.

But an anti-EuroVegas association held a rally in Madrid last week in which Adelson was mocked as an economic messiah, his pockets overflowing with dollars.

Juan Garcia, a spokesman for the association, said a gambling haven is not the answer to Spain's crisis.

'I think a casino would be a waste of brain power and labour, and instead endorses an activity that has little do with research, innovation and development,' Garcia said.

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