GAMBLING NEWS
PartyGaming owner sells 2 thirds of his shares
Oct 26, 2009
PartyGaming who is one of the absolute largest online gambling portals in the world started out their business in 1997 when they launched their first casino named Starluck Casino. During the following years they introduced Party Poker, Party Casino and Party Bingo. By the time summer was in full bloom on June 30th 2005 the owners decided to go public with PartyGaming Plc and was introduced on the London stock exchange. A few days ago just over 4 years later one of the co-founders has sold 2/3 of his stocks in the company.
Anurag Dikshit decided to sell 75 million of his shares in the online gambling company for a price over 213 million Great British Pounds. The 75 million shares is around 18% of the total company. Anurag Dikshit will still be holding 39 million shares which still make the Indian billionaire the second largest share holder in party gaming owning round 9.5 % of the total company. The news of the sale of Dikshits stocks created a massive fall of more than 13% for the PartyGaming Plc stock on the London stock exchange.
The US government has been hard on PartyGaming Plc who was focusing on targeting the American market prior to the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. Party Gaming has paid fines of $105 million for accepting American payers on their online gambling portal and Anurag Dikshit Himself decided to plead guilty in a similar case last December. The sentence was to pay the US government $300 million in fines. The plea bargain with the US attorney did however give Angur Dikshit a get out of Jail free card.
