Online Poker Reaps in Player, Investors

UNITED STATES – As reported by Reuters: "It's noon on a snowy Monday, and Joe Fox is looking for action.

"The pool tournament at a local bar doesn't start for another seven hours and the casinos of Atlantic City are a three-hour drive away, but on his computer screen the world's largest poker party has drawn 35,000 players from around the globe.

"The poker craze has moved from the basement card table to the home computer, as millions of players take part in low-stakes games or $10,000 tournaments that stretch for hours. It's becoming a huge business that exists in a legal limbo in the United States. It operates from offshore but is played just about everywhere.

"…The rapid growth of the industry has drawn the interest of another form of gambler on the London Stock Exchange.

"PartyGaming, which owns PartyPoker.com, is considering a public offering expected to value the company at 3 billion to 5 billion pounds (US$5.7 billion to $9.6 billion) in what would be London's largest listing since 2001.

"NETeller Plc (NLR.L), which handles money transfers for the industry, has seen its stock price more than triple to 622 pence (US$11.87) since it went public last April, while Sportingbet.com Plc (SBT.L) saw its stock price shoot up more than 50 percent last October when it announced plans to buy No. 3 poker site Paradise Poker for $300 million.

"But while England and other countries increasingly welcome online gambling, the U.S. Justice Department says a 1961 law that forbids interstate telephone betting also applies to the Internet.

"…Online poker rooms took in $1.3 billion in revenues last year, a figure that Christiansen Capital Advisors expects to grow to $5.8 billion by 2008, or 28 percent of all Internet gambling revenues.

"Analysts say the United States will eventually accept the industry…"