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Anurag Dikshit, billioner, co-founder of PartyGaming.com
  • Co-founder of PartyGaming, parent company of the world's leading online poker site PartyPoker.com
  • he is one of the youngest billionaires in the world.

 

UK NRI Anurag Dikshit founder of Online gambling to pay out $300m

 

London, Dec. 15, 16, 2008
Surinder Singh

NRI Anurag Dikshit, 35, the biggest shareholder and co-founder of PartyGaming.com has agreed to pay US authorities $300 million and plead guilty to a charge relating to illegal web betting in the most prominent prosecution so far in the US clampdown on internet gambling.

He made a plea bargain and has been agreed for risks a jail sentence of two years. He hopes the DoJ will recommend to Judge Jed Rakoff that, having gone voluntarily to the DoJ, he should not go to jail.

Anurag holds a 27% stake in the company and is due to appear in the Southern District Court of New York on Tuesday to admit to an offence under the Wire Act and to agree to co-operate with the US Department of Justice, people close to the situation say.

Ruth Parasol and her husband Russ DeLeon, Party­Gaming’s co-founders, who each own 14 per cent of the company, have shown no sign of any willingness to settle. Ruth Parasol is the woman who asked Anurag Dikshit to write some proprietary code for PartyGaming's Starluck online casino in 1998,. He gave him some shares for his ability.

 


May 24, 2006: NRI Anurag Dikshit, PartyGaming's Billionaire Dikshit Quits Board

Both NRIs 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 our list of the World's Richest People and Vikrant Bhargavar, one of India's 40 Richest, are reported to have resigned with immediate effect.

Dikshit and Bhargava made $785.8 million and $114.8 million respectively when the Gibraltar-based firm was floated on the London Stock Exchange in June last year, allowing them to sell some of their shares. The two have not been able to sell their entire stakes because of their places on PartyGaming's board. That has led some observers to now suggest the poker entrepreneurs are stepping down so that they can cash in their stakes, said to be worth a total of $3.73 billion.


2004: According to the Forbes-#207 Anurag Dikshit
Age: 34
Fortune: self made
Source: Online gambling

Net Worth: 3.3 billion

Country Of Citizenship: India
Residence: , Gibraltar, Middle East & Africa
Industry:
Marital Status: married, 1 child


 

Fortune estimated to be $1.75 billion, he is 35th on the list of the richest NRI (non resident Indian) in the world.

BIO

Anurag Dikshit

  • He was born in 1973, in Sindri, Jharkhandi
  • Completed schooling at De Nobili School, FRI, Jharkhand.
  • In 1994- Graduated with a Bachelor of Technology degree in computer science and engineering from India's Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
  • Worked as a software developer in the United States at CMC, for Websci and as a consultant for AT&T.

In 1998, at the age of 25, he wrote some proprietary code for PartyGaming's Starluck online casino (with the request of Ruth Parasol) to replace the software they were licensing. PartyGaming was founded by Parasol, an American lawyer who now lives in Gibraltar. By looking his ability, she gave him a considerable number of shares in the company.

In 2000, he hired a colleague from his alma mater, Vikrant Bhargava, to head the company's Caribbean operations.

In 2001, Party Poker was launched. His platform, which allowed 20,000 simultaneous users, proved inadequate and new technology was adopted allowing 70,000 simultaneous users,

Later Party Poker set up general public.He owns approximately 30% (largest shareholder) of PartyGaming after selling 23% of his stake in the company's Initial Public Offering.

In 2006, Dikshit stepped down from PartyGaming's board of directors to develop new products as head of the company's research and special projects

He lives in Gibraltar.


  • Real Problem is the majority of customers live in America, where online gambling is illegal. Solution: don't operate on U.S. soil; servers, employees based in Gibraltar, India, England, the Caribbean. Took public on London Stock Exchange in last June. Today manages company's operations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the Forbes in 2004:

  • #207 Anurag Dikshit
  • Courtesy of PartyGaming.com
    Age: 34
    Fortune: self made
    Source: Online gambling
  • Net Worth: 3.3 billion
  • Country Of Citizenship: India
    Residence: , Gibraltar, Middle East & Africa
    Industry:
    Marital Status: married, 1 child