The Party Gaming stock offering has been big news lately. There’s a profile of the company’s chief owner Ruth Parasol, for example, that makes interesting reading. But what about the people who actually run the site?
From NewKerala:
A new company entered the British stock-market last week, and was immediately valued at close to an astonishing 5 billion pound sterling. The company is called Party Gaming and it has become the world’s largest online gambling setup. It has also made millionaires, or even billionaires, of its creators, two of whom being Indian computer wizkids Anurag Dikshit and Vikrant Bhargava.So how did such a company come about? Well, back in 1998 a Californian porn princess called Ruth Parasol (and yes, that really is her name) commissioned a 25 year old Indian computer boffin to write a piece of software. Ms. Parasol had recently sold her porn interests, founded, according to legend, on a couple of sex phone lines given to her by her father as a birthday present when still in her teens (you couldn�t make it up could you?).
She wanted to invest the proceeds, found that online gambling was the next big thing allegedly, and, via a friend, was introduced to a recent graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, young Mr Dikshit. He was ready, willing, and, most important of all, able, to create a computer programme for casino games such as roulette and poker. He then brought on board his chum from college, Vikrant Bhargava as marketing director, and the rest, as they say, is history, with the company�s PartyPoker website now enabling some 70,000 people to play the game at the same time.
Indian techies behind world’s largest online gambling set up
Party Poker might be the gaming story of the decade. There’s definitely a book to be written about this side of the business.