World's biggest poker site could be set for £5bn float

by Staff,, Brand Republic 28-Jan-05, 08:00

LONDON - PartyGaming, owner of the world's biggest poker website PartyPoker.com, could be looking at floating in London, with reports that it has hired financial advisers to look at its strategic options.

The Financial Times reports that the company, based in Gibraltar, has been talking to London banks about the possibility of stock market flotation. The deal could be worth between £2.3bn and £5bn, according to reports.

PartyGaming, which was formerly known as iGlobalMedia, has appointed Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Investec to look at its options.

PartyPoker.com has 5m members and, at times, has as many as 65,000 people playing simultaneously. The market in online poker games is booming, with competitors including Paradise Poker, whose advertising is fronted by the model Caprice, and US operation UltimateBet set to launch in the UK this year.

The news of PartyGaming's possible flotation comes as a survey reveals that almost 4m Britons gamble online, and that 30%-40% of these gamblers are female, compared with a figure of about 5% of offline gamblers.

The figures have been released by uSwitch.com Communications, which said that celebrity endorsement of online casino ad campaigns and increased television coverage is behind the soaring popularity of the game.

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