Online Casino Gambling News Briefs

Published: Friday, April 08, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

ONLINE CASINO GAMBLING NEWS BRIEFS

Highrollers....

The UK media reports that a handful of high-rollers have come up trumps at Les Ambassadeurs, an upmarket Mayfair, London land casino winning, on rough calculations, about GBP 10 million.

The casino made GBP 18.4 million of underlying operating profits last year and GBP 9.1 million in the first half of this year. It lost a packet in December and January, though, and will now make less than GBP 9 million for the full financial year. The financial position was exacerbated by the relocation of the Sportsman casino and the late opening of its Fifty casino joint venture in central London.

Neteller building up steam

Last April, a small money transfer company called Neteller floated on London's AIM exchange. At the 200 p listing price, it was capitalised at GBP 240 million. This week, the shares rose to a mark over three times that at 640� p.

Neteller is now worth GBP 770 million - only GBP 170 million less than the high profile Egg internet bank. The reason for its success is that the company was a product of the US public's appetite for online gambling. The market exploded, but so did credit card fraud. As a result, Visa and Mastercard have backed out of the market almost completely.

To fill the gap, Neteller was founded in 2000 and now has 1.5 million customers with about $ 100 million in funds. Neteller makes its money by charging the gaming sites for each transaction and account holders for instant transferrals. It's certainly working. Pre-tax profits jumped from $ 2.21 million to $ 45.8 million last year.

Chief executive Gord Herman reckons this is just the beginning. The company wants to become a money transfer business to rival Western Union, with banking partners and a global infrastructure. It has moved from Canada to the Isle of Man for tax reasons, been authorised by the Financial Services Authority for credibility, and has started its assault on Europe and Asia. Three years ago, revenues came exclusively from online gambling. Some 15pc are now generated by other transactions.