Dikshit offloads remaining PartyGaming shares



One of the founders of leading online gaming operator PartyGaming, Anurag Dikshit, offloaded his remaining stake of 38.8 million shares in the firm last week for a reported £105 million.

Gibraltar-based PartyGaming owns the World Poker Tour land-based tournament series and operates the popular online poker domain PartyPoker.com alongside leading bingo sites FoxyBingo.com, MirrorBingo.com, ThinkBingo.com and CheekyBingo.com. Last year it reported a three percent increase in net revenues for 2008 to $472.9 million from the $457.8 million it reported for 2007.

According to a report from the Daily Mail newspaper, this is the second time in less than four months that Dikshit has rid himself of shares in PartyGaming after he made around £188 million from a similar sale in October.

The newspaper stated that India-born Dikshit has earned around £700 million from selling his shares in PartyGaming while donating £500 million of this to his Kusuma Trust charity.

Dikshit helped start PartyGaming in 1997 by creating its software platform and, according to a report from Forbes magazine, became the world’s 207th richest person when the firm went public in 2005.