PartyGaming Founder Pleads Guilty

December 23, 2008

Well, he did it. Anurag Dikshit plead guilty to online gambling, much to the chagrin of many other online gambling companies � including his own. However, it is amazing what Dikshit�s confession did for his online gambling company�s stock � it sent it soaring. The stock for the online gambling company PartyGaming shot up 27% just as Dikshit was confessing.

Dikshit is expected to be treated leniently by the judge because of his cooperation, and they hope that others will seek to confess as well in the hopes of bringing these proceedings to an end. Dikshit is a co-founder of Party Gaming, and yesterday he saw his stake in the firm literally jump from �198m to go up �42.3m.

His appearance in court marked the first time that a high profile online gambling tycoon willingly appeared in a US court to face charges. His residual holdings in the company are worth about $300 million and he agreed to forfeit those amounts to the government. He admitted to his offence against the Wire Act as related to Party Gaming.

Once the online casino stated that Dikshit was in the process of �negotiating the final terms of a possible settlement with the Department of Justice,� the shares in the online gambling company started to climb. The company said that the deal was expected to be considerably less than the $300 million that Dikshit had offered them.

Experts say that because Dikshit was so forthcoming with the USDOJ that the settlement could be as low as $100 million, which could easily be paid out of their $149 million resources.

 

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