PartyGaming's Billionaire Dikshit Quits Board
Two men who helped shift the persona of poker from its gritty Mississippi steamboat roots to the 24-hour online phenomenon it is today are quitting the board of the wildly successful gambling Web site they founded.
Anurag Dikshit, ranked 207 on (Forbes) list of the World's Richest People and Vikrant Bhargavar, one of India's 40 Richest, are reported to have resigned with immediate effect. Until now the thirty-something co-founders of PartyGaming have reaped lucrative rewards with PartyPoker.com, the world's biggest online poker room, which hosts up to 70,000 players at any one time.
Dikshit (pronounced Dixit) and college chum Bhargava founded the company in 1997, three years after leaving the Indian Institute of Technology. They share ownership of the company with former porn entrepreneur Ruth Parasol, who first commissioned Dikshit in 1998 to write the software for what would eventually become their hugely successful Web site. Having acted as PartyGaming's marketing director, the shy, sandal-wearing Bhargava now intends to leave the company at the end of the year.
Reports have said he may set up a consultancy after years of involvement with PartyGaming had left him "exhausted." He owns 8.6% of the company's shares.
Meanwhile Dikshit, who owns a 30. 4% stake and acts as PartyGaming's chief operations officer, will stay on and focus on the development of new products and platforms. "He's the best technology brains we've got," a PartyGaming spokesman told Online-Casino.com.
May 26, 2006
Posted By Susan Torres
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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