Big Reward For Party Poker People In Listing

Published: Friday, June 03, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

BIG REWARDS FOR PARTY POKER PEOPLE IN LONDON LISTING

Owners and staff alike in for a bonanza

The publicity this week surrounding Party Gaming's plans to float their poker website for GBP 5.5 billion on the London stock market showcased some interesting personalities.

The 1,100 staff - from Indian call centre workers to head office staff in Gibraltar - will be given GBP 308 million in shares, averaging GBP 281,000 per employee.

Founders Anurag Dikshit, 32, and Vikrant Bhargava, 33, both graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology, own the company with American husband-and-wife team Ruth Parasol and Russ DeLeon. The four stand to pocket GBP 4.2 billion between them from the flotation but will retain 77 per cent of the company.

PartyGaming's founders rarely give interviews and three of the four refuse to release photographs of themselves. However, The Guardian reports that Ruth Parasol is known to have made millions in the Nineties by setting up premium-rate adult chatlines and pornographic websites before severing all links with the industry in 1997 to switch to online gambling.

Ms Parasol, a lawyer, lives in New York with Mr DeLeon and their two children. The couple, both Harvard law school graduates, act as consultants to the company and deal with the legal side of the business which is based in Gibraltar because of its relaxed gambling laws.

The Party Poker site averages about 70,000 users playing online against each other at any one time. New figures released as InfoPowa went to press reveal 4.3 million people in Britain have gambled online, and experts predict the market will grow in the next year.

The employees' share pot will be put in trust for options packages over five years. "It's a very generous gift," said chief executive Richard Segal, whose own one percent stake could be worth more than GBP 57 million.

The companys statement of intention to float included trading figures showing pre-tax profit in the three months to 31 March rocketed 77 per cent on a year earlier to GBP 67.5 million, on revenues up 93 percent to almost GBP 128 million.