| It has been reported that Ruth Parasol should have made separate fortunes from pornographic websites and
online gambling is no coincidence. Although companies such as Amazon, eBay and
Google have been hugely successful, the most profitable areas of the internet
are devoted to lust and greed.
Ms Parasol, a lawyer from California in her late thirties, is one of a
small number of US and Indian investors who can expect to crystallise
mind-boggling paper fortunes when they float PartyGaming, the online poker and
casino company, on the London Stock Exchange later this year.
Although PartyGaming says an initial public offering (IPO) is just one of
several "strategic options" it has asked Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and
Investec to investigate, most commentators reckon it will seek to cash in on the
online gambling boom by pursuing an IPO.
Valuing PartyGaming, whose PartyPoker site accounts for more than 50 per
cent of the online poker market, is difficult. However, with analysts predicting
a market capitalisation of anywhere between $5 billion (?2.7 billion) and $6
billion, the business seems certain to enter the blue-chip FTSE 100 index.
According to a report from Global Betting and Gaming Consultants,
worldwide turnover on interactive gambling reached almost $70 billion in 2003 ?
up from $16.5 billion in 2000 ? generating a gross gambling yield for operators
of about $5.6 billion. By 2010, it expects turnover to pass $100 billion and the
yield to hit $11.3 billion.
Iain Wilkie, a partner in Ernst & Young, says that gambling had
undergone a transformation, losing much of the stigma that was once attached to
it. "Most countries have some form of state lottery and people seem to be
comfortable playing them," he says.
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