Poker Sites
Regulation
|
 PartyGaming
is the parent company of Party Poker. Additionally they operate
Party Casino, Party Backgammon and Party Bingo,
although poker generates the large majority of PartyGaming's income.
Under its previous name of iGlobalMedia, the company had a less than pristine reputation, with non-random casino software and
the mainstream media's obsession with company founder Ruth Parasol's prior association with the adult industry. An even greater
trouble spot in the company's early history was with the initial Party Poker Million tournament in early 2002, where the company lost
hundreds of thousands of dollars when they guaranteed a one million dollar prize pool and turnout was considerably below that.
This trouble spot though really put the company on the map when they came through with the guarantee without any apparent difficulty.
In the online world, where companies can evaporate in an instant, this reliability can go a long way. Soon thereafter Party Poker
gained a massive market edge by being the only online poker room to advertise during the first months of the initial World Poker
Tour season, no doubt due to Party Poker spokesman Mike Sexton also serving as host of the WPT. Despite having a significantly
inferior game platform at the time, Party Poker surged to the front of the online poker market as it grew dramatically.
Party Gaming went public on the London Stock Exchange in June 2005 with an initial value of about eight and half billion dollars,
making it one of the 100 largest companies on the Exchange.
Subsequently the stock (after a quick rise and a large fall) has apparently stabilized to where it has a market cap around three
billion dollars. Profits for 2004 and 2005 were in the neighborhood of one million dollars a day, which is a nice neighborhood
indeed. In May 2006, two of Parasol's three original partners (her husband is the fourth), Anurag Dikshit and Vikrant Bhargava,
announced they would be stepping down from the company's board of directors, although they would continue to work with the company.
Due to the
Safe Port Act, Party Gaming
does not take United States players.
To check out Party Poker:
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