Online casino Party Gaming pays for U.S. non-prosecution

The fortunes of the leading online casino PartyGaming are set to rise after coming to a non-prosecution deal with the U.S. authorities. In the short term the $108m cost of the agreement payable in instalments every six months, will hit PartyGaming hard but already there has been a dramatic 17 per cent rise in the share value of the online casino and gaming group.

Certainly the Board of Directors at PartyGaming, must be relieved that the whole sorry mess is behind them now, which has seen one of the founders of the online casino group Anurag Dikshit pay a massive $300m in respect of a guilty plea fine and a possible prison term when sentence is passed in December 2010.

The woes of PartyGaming which is licensed in Gibraltar have developed since the banning of online casino and gaming in 2006, the U.S. authorities have been aggressively pursuing online casino and gaming companies including BETonSports and SportingBet since the Safe Port Act was passed. The EU is conducting their own investigations to ascertain whether the U.S. authorities themselves are breaking international world trade laws in their relentless pursuit of the European online casino and gaming industry.

Some industry experts believe that this deal may be the first sign that the Safe Port Act may be repealed and that online casino and gaming in the U.S may once again be possible. It has long been felt in the industry that there is a bad taste associated with the seemingly selective prosecutions of European gaming sites, as some U.S. casino and gaming operations have managed to escape without any form of prosecution, also the fact that online casinos and gaming companies are being charged retrospectively for a law that was not in place at the time of their operation in the U.S. The majority of online casino and gaming companies ceased taking bets from U.S. players once the new law came into force.